


Back the Way You Came

by tellthenight



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Mutual Pining, Physical Abuse, Pining, Police Officer Dean, School Reunion, deancaspinefest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-21
Updated: 2017-02-21
Packaged: 2018-09-26 02:28:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 25,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9857942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tellthenight/pseuds/tellthenight
Summary: Dean Winchester knows he has a lot going right in his life–good family, friends–but he can’t seem to let go of one nagging regret. He should have left while he had the chance. Instead, he’s stuck in place wishing for someone he’ll never see again.Cas Novak never thought he’d end up here– back in his mother’s house, taking care of her medical decisions. He planned to take care of everything as quickly as possible and get back home–until he runs into a former classmate who insists that he should go to their 10-year reunion that weekend. Cas refuses the offer until he hears that Dean Winchester will be there.





	1. Dean

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is amazing art for this fic [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/9857867)

Dean drove to Bobby’s the same way he did every Friday night: Ben in the back seat busy with his phone, earbuds wedged in place, and Lisa holding a casserole in the passenger seat next to him. But the old farmhouse just before Bobby’s driveway had a visitor, and Dean jerked the wheel slightly when he saw the tan car.

“Dean?” Lisa asked.

“Sorry,” he said, swallowing everything down and ignoring her sideways glance. A car shouldn’t startle anyone, but it had been years since he’d seen this one. Dean hadn’t believed he’d ever see it again.

“Ben! We’re here,” Dean said gruffly as he turned into Singer Salvage, past the scrap and back to the house. Lisa got out as soon as Dean threw the car in park behind Sam’s truck, the casserole dish in her hands. She headed straight in the house. Ben was still enthralled with his game and didn’t move. Dean snapped his fingers in an exaggerated motion to get Ben’s attention. Ben’s eyes snapped up and met his. Dean pointed to the house, Ben looked and then swiped the earbuds out of his head.

“Sorry,” he mumbled and popped the door open.

They were going to have to talk again. Dean had made it clear before that devices were okay so long as Ben still paid attention to the world around him. It was the third time in as many days he’d had to pay attention on Ben’s account, and it made him so damn afraid his temper flared. Dean held bitter words back and grabbed the beer out of the trunk. He and Ben needed a little space if he was going to keep his mouth shut. The last time he’d lit into Ben about being aware of his surroundings Lisa had her own heated words to say, and he wasn’t about to repeat that experience.

Eileen’s eyes were already on the door when Dean walked in. She smiled at him and Dean signed hello. He tried to sign as frequently as he could these days. When Dean’s three-year-old niece Mary passed him up in signing skill he’d decided to sign at every possible opportunity. He’d learned pretty quickly for Eileen--at least enough to get by, but it wasn’t enough anymore. Dean wasn’t about to be outdone by a toddler.

Ben took up one end of the couch, and Mary had crawled over close, looking at his phone. He was good with her despite their age difference.

“Dean, did you grab the beer out of the back?” Lisa called from the kitchen.

“Got it,” he said and carried it past Eileen with a nod.

Sam leaned against the kitchen counter like he owned the place, long legs stretched out in front of him and arms crossed over his chest. He stopped talking when Dean came. “You’re late.”

“But I’m here, ain’t I? Unlike your sorry ass last week.”

“It was a work thing!” Sam protested.

Dean shook his head and clicked his tongue as he put the beer in the fridge. “Family first,” he said.

Sam laughed and shook his head.

“You see anyone else out there?” Bobby asked as he opened the oven and peeked in on whatever he was baking.

“No. Charlie will be here soon, though.”

“This is just about ready,” Bobby said. “Tell the kids to wash up and we’ll start getting food on the table.”

Dean went back to the living room where neither Ben or Mary had moved from their places, eyes glued on whatever it was they were watching.

_ I’m taking the phone away _ , he signed to Eileen.

She shrugged.  _ It’s fine with me. _

_ Not during family dinner. He’ll have to talk. _

“You’re recovering your vocabulary pretty quickly,” Eileen said as she signed.

“Can’t let the kids pass me up,” Dean signed along as he spoke too. Practice, practice, practice.

There was a knock at the door and Dean went to answer, muttering, “Come on in, Charlie.”

He pulled the heavy door open, a sarcastic remark ready on his lips, but he froze for a moment before he could speak. “Jody.”

Jody smiled uneasily. She had a bottle of wine in one hand and a store-bought box of cookies in the other. Dean wasn’t used to seeing her out of uniform. “Dean. Hi. Um, Bobby invited me. I hope you can stand seeing me a little while longer today.”

“Sure. Of course. Come on in.” Dean pulled the door open wide and stepped back so she could step inside. “Bobby’s in the kitchen.” Dean started to close the door, but Charlie pulled in and parked behind the Impala. He held the door for her too and she smiled sweetly.

“What a gentleman,” she said as she passed him.

“It’s not nice to call names, Bradbury.” Dean hollered after her. He closed the door and went back to the kids on the couch.

“Hey, guys, go wash your hands. It’s time to eat.” Neither of them moved until Dean held out his hand for the phone. Ben sighed, turned it off, and handed it over.

By the time they all got to the table the food was laid out down the middle with places set at each seat.

“This one here, Jody,” Bobby said, nodding to the seat next to his. Lisa caught Dean’s eye from across the table and raised her eyebrows in question.

Dean took a seat between Charlie and Sam, and after Eileen got Mary settled in on her booster seat food started around the table.

“Oh, Sam, Eileen-- before I forget,” Lisa said. “Is it okay to drop Ben off at 5:30 tomorrow? I need to get to the high school a little earlier than I thought. I can bring pizza or something.”

“That’s fine, and no pizza necessary,” Sam said as he spooned mashed potatoes onto his plate.

“Is everything ready for the reunion?” Eileen asked.

“I think so, at least on my end. We’ll see if everyone else did their homework when we get over there to set up tomorrow afternoon.” Lisa pointed at Dean with her fork. “And you make sure you get out of work on time. No excuses for missing this.”

Dean shrugged. “You’ll have to take that up with my boss.” He grinned at Jody.

“Jody,” Lisa said. “please make sure Dean gets-”

“He won’t be able to pin an absence on me,” Jody said.

“Speaking of the reunion,” Sam said. “Did you see who’s back in town?” Sam glanced over at him and Dean shrugged and tried in vain to keep his neck from heating up and his ears turning pink.

“A lot of people came in for the reunion, Sam,” Lisa said. “You’ll have to be more specific.”

Sam nudged Dean with his shoulder. “You saw his car when you came over, right?”

“Doesn’t mean he’s coming to the reunion.” Dean ran his fingers over the leather bracelet on the opposite wrist. 

“Why else would he be here?” Sam asked.

“Mrs. Novak’s been in the hospital a couple weeks,” Bobby said. “Maybe he finally came back to see to his mother.”

“He wouldn’t,” Dean said, voice low. “Not unless she’s dying. Maybe not even then.” 

“It’s been ten years since you last saw him,” Bobby said. “Maybe he patched things up with her at some point.”

“Point is, none of us know why he’s here.” Agitation colored Dean’s voice in harsh tones. “Or even if that’s still his car. Let it go already.” He kept his eyes on his plate, stabbing the green beans harder than necessary.

“Like Frozen?” Mary piped up hopefully.

Most of the adults laughed and the tension fled the room. “Yeah, like Frozen, honey,” Sam said.

 

***

 

The fall of Dean’s senior year a new kid showed up wearing eyeliner and a skirt to the first day of classes. He was lean and tall and he walked like he knew everything in the world. He raised his hand for most every question in the English class they shared, and he was always right--every fucking time.

On Friday that first week Dean dropped Sam off at the middle school just in time, but by the time he got to the high school the front parking lot for students was full. He parked around back behind the tall gymnasium where grass grew up in the cracks of the asphalt. He grabbed his backpack and hustled for the double doors, but the bell went off and there was no way he’d make it in time. No sense in hurrying just to get a tardy anyway.

Dean heard skin striking skin on the far side of the storage shed the school used for neon parking cones and all the school’s outdoor decor. He veered off that direction. It was usually best to stay out of things, but he heard Cole Trenton above the scuffle and ran toward the shed.

There were five of them kicking, stomping, punching, and one on the ground. Cole looked up the second Dean appeared around the corner.

“Get in on this, Winchester, or forget everything you just saw.”

The kid on the ground spat blood onto the asphalt. His eyeliner ran unevenly down his cheeks as he gasped for air.

“I think you’re the one that better get the fuck out of here,” Dean said.

Cole straightened and looked Dean over. “I’ve kicked your ass before and I can do it again.”

“Okay, let’s see it,” Dean grinned as he slid his backpack off his shoulders and dropped it on the ground. “Pretty sure I’ve grown about a foot since then.”

“Forget how to count again?” Cole asked, and his cronies laughed. “Five of us, one of you.”

“Two,” came a deep voice that drove right to Dean’s core. The new kid had pushed up to his knees and held his ribs together with one arm. He focused killer eyes on Cole.

“Who-  _ you _ , dancing queen?” Cole grabbed him by the hair, yanking his head back at a harsh angle. The new kid gasped in pain and blood drained from his face. He clung to his ribs with both arms.

“You don’t count for anything.” Cole hissed close to his face. “At least Winchester here is good in a fight. He doesn’t just lay there and take it.”

Cole yanked the new kid’s head back harder, pulling him off balancing and dropping him face first on the asphalt.

“Stop!” Dean roared. He got two good punches to Cole’s face before he got pulled back to the ground. It hurt all the way down, his ass, his shoulder, his head bouncing against the pavement. A splash of white obscured his vision for a second, fading out into dozens of exploding stars before the world came back to him.

He heard shoes on the pavement, scuffling back and forth, the dull smack of a fist against skin, and then a loud thud as someone hit the ground near him. Dean let his head lull to the side just in time to see the new kid roll over gagging on the blood and bile in his mouth.

There was another scramble, whispers to “run!” and shoes slapping the ground in their haste to get away.

Someone’s hands were on his face and Dean blinked slowly.

“You okay? Come on--get up.”

Dean didn’t recognize the voice until his eyes focused in. “You…you’re…” he couldn’t think of the word, and it was important to have just the right one.

“Jesus fucking christ,” the new kid mumbled. “Can you sit up?”

Dean tried, but his muscles couldn’t remember how. The new kid leaned over him and Dean wondered why the kid with blood all over his face was trying to help  _ him _ .

“Get help,” Dean said. His tongue was slow and thick in his mouth, but the kid needed medical attention. “Go,” Dean said.”You’re…”  _ What was that goddamn missing word? _

There were more footsteps and Dean tried to roll, to scramble up, but the new kid pinned him down. “Don’t move.”

“What happened here!” She demanded more than asked. Dean smiled as his eyes slid closed.  _ Ellen _ .

“Get away from him!”

The pressure holding Dean down at the shoulders disappeared.

“I didn’t hurt him. It wasn’t me! There were these other guys-”

He could feel her close and her fingers pressing to his neck. She said his name, then to someone else: “Call 911.”

He opened his eyes for her. Ellen looked nothing like his mother but she was just about the next best thing. Dean grinned. “Shoulda seen the… the other guy?” He turned his head to see the new kid, but Coach Henricksen had him sitting against the building.

“Dean, an ambulance is coming,” Ellen said. “Lay still.”

“He has blood,” Dean muttered.

“Did he do this to you?”

A small laugh made his head spark again. “Cole and the meatheads.”

Ellen cursed under her breath.

“He says it was five other students,” Coach said somewhere way over Dean’s head.

“Dean says Cole Trenton and his pals.”

“Is he okay?” The new kid asked in his rich deep voice. He stood over Dean, and Dean had to squint to focus on him.

“Son, you best stay sitting down,” Ellen said. “I won’t have you passing out on me.”

“Hey… it’s you.” Dean said. “You’re... beautiful.” He closed his eyes again, finally satisfied that he’d found the word he was looking for.


	2. Jimmy

Jimmy checked the mailbox before pulling down the gravel driveway. Most of it was coupons and ads he’d throw away as soon as he got inside, but two envelopes were from the hospital and he split those open as soon as he got inside. The patient care coordinator had explained that the bills would come in spite of the payment plan he’d arranged, but it didn’t make him feel any better to see the total fee at the bottom. She could be there another week--maybe more. The number would continue to climb and he had to figure out how to cover what her shitty insurance wouldn’t.

The screen door slapped closed on Jimmy’s heels. He tossed the mail on the coffee table and moved on to open the two windows in the living room, then the single window in the kitchen. The house was musty after just a few days of being closed up, but it had been worse when he first moved back. Between the food hoarding and his mother’s inability to take care of herself, he’d spent the first week with a rented dumpster in the driveway. He’d hired a cleaning crew to help him get the place habitable again and only visited the hospital twice that week.

Jimmy shuffled back through the mail, trashing everything but the hospital bills. Those went in a tidy stack on the kitchen table. If she ever came home again he’d help her figure it out.

He went back to his room, opened the door and sat in the doorway, leaning against the doorjamb. She hadn’t touched a damn thing after Jimmy’d left. In the first moments, he was glad it was the same. He thought for sure she’d sanitize the place of his wicked ways the second he left, but everything was the same. The books he’d had to abandon for lack of room sat in a tall stack next to the bookcase covered in thick dust. The air was filled with it, and that was worse. She’d literally closed the door on him, and pretended like he’d never been there at all.

A familiar sound went by outside and Jimmy’s neck prickled. He jumped up and went to the front door, but the sound of that engine was a decade old.

Jimmy shut all the windows before he left. He almost turned right out of the driveway, but it was better for the past to stay there.

Jimmy turned left.

 

***

 

Jimmy stopped for a greasy burger and fries from Rosie’s Diner, taking it to go. He ate mechanically in front of the T.V. with a 6-pack on the table, watching the time until eight p.m. He called and Anna answered after only two rings. 

“Hey, good timing, big brother. I’m just now walking out.”

“Sorry, I thought you’d be home by now.”

“The nurse taking over my patients was late.”

Jimmy sighed. “I’m sorry.”

“It was nothing you did. So how’s it going? Finish cleaning up the house?” Jimmy heard her open the car door and slam it closed.

“Yeah. I just stopped by to get the mail today. I was at the hospital most of the time.”

“Has she woken up? Have the doctors given you a timeline?”

“I’m sorry. Everything here is up in the air and I don’t know what to do.”

“Not yet, but I suspect tomorrow they’ll talk to me about life support. Everything here is up in the air and I don’t know what to do.”

“Call me if that happens and I’ll listen in. We can talk it through.”

Jimmy nodded even though she couldn’t see him. “I didn’t think it would be this hard. I figured I’d clean out the house and the medical stuff would happen essentially on its own and then it would be over and I’d go home.”

“Jimmy, you’re trying to tie up the loose ends on a very difficult time in your life,” Anna said. “But the biggest loose end means having a conversation with your mother, and you haven’t been able to do that. Nothing has been resolved. Let it be hard if that’s what it is.”

“I don’t want to be here,” Jimmy said. “This whole fucking thing is some kind of cosmic joke.”

“You’re doing the right thing. You should be there when she goes.”

Jimmy snorted. “Like she was there for me all my life.”

“Jimmy,” Anna started, but Jimmy already knew what she was going to say

“I know. Doing the right thing. You’re absolutely right.”

“Try to sleep tonight. Did you make a decision about the reunion?”

He could always trust Anna to leave no stone unturned. He and Anna hadn’t lived in the same house for very long growing up, but he was closer to her than anyone else in his life. They kept in close contact as she shuffled back and forth between her parents and Cas between his, and she knew all his secrets. “You have to graduate to be invited, you know.”

“Jimmy, I’m gonna say this one more time, and then I’m done,” Anna said. Jimmy heard her take a deep breath in preparation and he took a drink before she could get going.

“Closing the door on all this means resolving  _ everything _ . Maybe seeing everyone at that school again and seeing where you are in comparison to them will help you resolve some of those issues.”

“And who am I, again?”

“You have to decide that, Jimmy.” she sighed on the other end and Jimmy could feel her frustration radiating at him all the way from Illinois. “I know I said your mother is the biggest loose end, but I think seeing Dean again is just as important.”

“Anna, we were kids back then. We didn’t know what we were doing.”

“That doesn’t mean you don’t love him,” she said.

Jimmy laughed uncomfortably. “Love is…” he hesitated. Love was the wrong word for what he felt. A therapist had advised the word companionship or comradery for what he had with Dean. He said that Dean and Jimmy had been through something very difficult together and because of their ages at the time had confused it with love.

That was the last time Jimmy had a session with him.

“What, Jimmy?” Anna prompted. “Love is--what?”

“Everything is complicated with Dean.” Jimmy took a deep breath. “I mean, I know he remembers me, but he moved on. I looked him up, there was a birth announcement and a wedding announcement and…” Jimmy didn’t want to talk about it anymore. “It’s done. People get married, move on--it’s done between us.”

Anna was silent on her end of the line. Jimmy waited for a diatribe that never came. 

“Two things,” she finally started. “First- even if he is married, you could still see him at the reunion and catch up as friends. That might bring you just as much closure. Second,” Anna took a deep breath. “Jimmy, listen. I love you, but I can’t keep watching you live under all this regret.”

“That has nothing to do with Dean.”

“Bullshit. It has everything to do with Dean.”

She was right like she so often was. “You have to know that I didn’t leave because of Dean.”

Her soft sigh came through. “I know,” she said. “It’s so much bigger than that.”

“I’ll call again tomorrow,” Jimmy said.

“Okay. Take care of yourself, Jimmy. Sleep, and maybe try to write if you can.”

“Thank you. You're too good to me.”

Anna laughed, gentle and low. “I love you, Jimmy.”

Jimmy said another goodbye before he ended the call. There wasn’t anything interesting on the TV, but he fell asleep to its light anyway.

 

***

 

“Mr. Novak, would you please stay?” Mrs. Moseley motioned to him with one finger as the rest of the students filed out with the bell.

Cas gathered his books and shoved them in his backpack, zipping quickly before he went over to the teacher’s desk.

“Yes, ma’am?”

Mrs. Moseley watched until every last student had left the room before she looked at Cas. “How’re you doing here?”

“You can probably guess the answer to that.” Cas stared her straight in the eye. One of his eyes was still mostly green and yellow, and most of the cuts and scrapes were still scabbed over on his face. The two broken ribs were healing--the doctors didn’t really do anything for that injury. He was supposed to rest and take it easy, but he wasn’t about to miss more than the first day after the fight.

“Since that incident, I mean.”

Cas looked the lady over. “I know you think you’re helping, but I don’t need to talk about this.”

“Mmmhmmm,” she intoned. “Of course you don’t. A kid like you doesn’t need anybody on his side.” She looked back at her desk and moved a stack of papers around while she looked for something in particular.

“Would you consider tutoring a student in math this semester?”

Cas shrugged. “I don’t know if it’s a good idea to tutor someone in my own class.”

“He’s an algebra student, not calculus, and he needs someone to work with him every day for an hour or so after school. His uncle asked me to find him a tutor and said he’d pay for your time.”

“Like actual money.”

Mrs. Moseley nodded almost imperceptibly, her eyes never leaving Cas’s face. “Real money. It won’t get you out of here any faster, but you’ll have something of your own at least.”

“Where do we do this?”

“Wherever you two agree to meet. You’re welcome to use my classroom or the school library so long as you two get started right after school. I like to leave promptly at five.”

“I’m not exactly the tutoring type,” Cas said. “I don’t think I’m interested.”

“Suit yourself,” Mrs. Moseley said.

Cas hauled his backpack up on the shoulder opposite his healing ribs and started for the door. Another student came rushing in and narrowly missed him.

“Sorry I’m late, Mrs. Moseley, I-” Dean stopped, turned around, and looked at Cas. “You!”

Cas looked around, then back at Dean. “Yeah, me.”

Dean came closer and Cas backed away involuntarily.

“Woah. Sorry,” Dean said. “I just wanted to know if you’re doing okay? I’ve been trying to catch up with you, but they wouldn’t let me come back to class ‘til this week.”

“Which is why you’re here,” Mrs. Moseley said. “I was talking to Mr. Novak about tutoring you to help you catch up with the semester, but it seems he’s not-”

“I’ll do it, Mrs. Moseley,” Cas said. The boy who’d called him beautiful smiled, and everything he’d endured at this school seemed worth it.


	3. Dean

When Dean glanced in the rear view mirror he saw Ben’s head tilted to the side, his mouth wide open as he snored softly. “He’s out.”

Lisa smiled. “Thanks to you and Sam. You were like little kids out there.”

“Hey--someone’s got to teach the kid to throw a football.”

Lisa twisted to check on Ben in the back. “What was that thing with Jody? You think she and Bobby are-”

“Don’t say it,” Dean warned.

“I’m serious! He invited her, asked her to sit next to him at dinner, and he didn’t harass you and Sam like he usually does.”

Dean considered it and nodded. “The ‘idjit’ count was pretty low tonight.”

“You think they’ve been on a date?” She gasped and covered her mouth. “Was this a practice run? Or maybe it actually  _ was _ their first date.”

“Woah, woah, woah. Bobby doesn’t date, okay? And not Jody. She’s my boss.”

“What’s your point?”

“They’re not dating.”

“What if they’ve been together for a while and she came over to see how everyone would react?”

Dean rolled his eyes. “Stop.  _ Please. _ I don’t need that image in my head.”

Lisa laughed but didn’t say anything else. Dean focused on the road. It wasn’t exactly a country road, but deer sometimes crossed in the dark. It would be weird if Bobby and Jody got together. Dean had known her since high school, but always as an authority figure. He trusted her like family, but the thought of her becoming actual family was strange.

“Will you carry him in for me?” Lisa asked when they pulled into the neighborhood.

“Sure,” Dean said.

Getting their eight-year-old out of the car was trickier than it looked, but Dean managed it without banging Ben’s head on the car. Lisa took care of the front door and led the way inside, opening doors and turning on lights.

Ben hardly moved when Dean settled him in the bed and tucked blankets around him. When he slept it was easy to see the toddler he’d been not too many years earlier.  _ Better times. _

Dean found Lisa in the kitchen, a bottle of wine in one hand and the corkscrew in the other.

“Wanna stay for a drink?” she asked.

“I’m on duty tomorrow,” Dean said.

Lisa weaved her way around the counter, smiling over his lame excuse. “I can make sure you get home at a reasonable hour.” She trailed a hand down his arm. “Or you can stay the night here.” She moved in close and Dean put his hands on her hips.

“Hey, I thought you and what’s-his-name were getting a good thing going.”

“Matt? I don’t know.” Lisa shrugged and rubbed her hands down Dean’s chest. “He works a lot, and I don’t think he’s really that interested in Ben.”

“How can he not be interested in Ben? Ben’s awesome.”

“Exactly,” she said and raised up onto her toes to kiss him. Dean kissed her back but didn’t let her get too serious.

“I really do have a shift tomorrow,” Dean said. “Maybe a rain check?”

Lisa laughed as she stepped back, giving him space. “Yeah, ‘cause that’s how this thing with us works.”

He caught her wrist and pulled her back to him. She pressed into his chest and for a moment Dean reconsidered. “I know exactly how this works,” he said. “Rain check.”

She smiled and shook her head. “What are you thinking about? Or who? Jody?”

Dean released her. “Ew. No! Jody’s like my sister or something. Don’t say shit like that.”

Lisa laughed. “There I go putting images in your head.”

“Christ, Lisa! Don’t-”

She smiled. “You thinking about Cas?” She slid her fingers down his arm to catch the leather bracelet at his wrist.

Dean pulled back. “Come on, Lisa-”

“I’m serious,” she said. “It makes a lot of sense. It looks like he’s back, the reunion is tomorrow, of course you’re thinking about him.”

“You know what? I’m going home.”

“Dean-”

“We’re good, I just… I don’t want to talk about that.”

Lisa leaned back against the counter and sighed. “It’s completely normal for you to wonder how he turned out.”

“So he can see I’m a fucking townie cop? That’s… you know what? I’ll come help with set up tomorrow like I promised, but I’m not staying. I don’t want-” Dean stalked out of the kitchen and down the short hall to the front door, but Lisa caught up with him before he could leave.

“Hey, Dean. Listen. You’re a good thing for this town, you provide for your son, you take care of your family--there is nothing wrong with you or what you do.”

“Lisa,” he said it quiet, a soft pleading word.

“Dean, please hear me. You are a good man. There is nothing wrong with where you are and what you’re doing with your life.”

Dean blinked rapidly, trying to push back the emotions threatening. “Thanks, but… I don’t know. We’ll see.”

Lisa stared at him with those empathetic eyes of hers and Dean shrank under that steadfast look. “I’m going,” he said. “Tell Ben I’ll pick him up after school on Monday.”

Lisa nodded and held the door for him. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

The last thing he needed was for her to watch him pull away from the house, but she stood in the open doorway until he reached the end of the street. Lisa thought she knew everything about him and how he worked, like the two years they’d spent together had made her an expert.

Seeing Cas again was a bad idea. Lisa didn’t understand that. She had joked about Cas being Dean’s long-lost love, and once in a fight had even thrown it out there between them with such ferocity that Dean had turned tail and left the house for the night. Their relationship was already on fumes by then. Everything that happened afterward seemed prophesied.

Dean slowed on the narrow two-lane highway and turned where the gravel driveway met the blacktop. The impala crunched slowly down the drive, headlights cutting through the dark until he reached the little house. The light was on over the sink in the kitchen, so Dean didn’t bother to turn on any other lights. He grabbed the six-pack out of the fridge and sank onto the couch after slithering out of his jacket. The first beer went fastest.

He rubbed his hand over the leather bracelet. Dean wore it every day, but ten years was a long time to think there might be a “someday”. He was different now, hell--Cas was probably different too. And there was no way to know if that car had even been Cas. It could have been sitting tight in the Novak garage for the last decade for all he knew. A car could mean anything, and Dean didn’t have the energy to waste on nothing.

 

***

 

Dean threw his pencil down on his open textbook and leaned back in his seat. “I don’t get this. No way I’m passing this.”

Cas examined Dean’s work. “Try again. You mis-multiplied right here, but otherwise it’s all correct. You do understand how to do it.”

“I obviously fucking don’t because I can’t get any of them right.” It didn’t help that his tutor was a goddamn distraction with those soulful eyes and perfect lips and--christ--the hair that he wanted to get his hands into.

“You’re making simple mistakes,” Cas said. “You frequently mis-add or mis-multiply and that messes up the rest of the problem. Pay better attention to those math facts.”

“You know what? I’m done.” Dean slid out of the seat and grabbed his backpack off the floor. He threw it on the seat, opened it and stuffed his math book in before Cas could say anything. “Three weeks of this and I can’t catch up. I’m gonna have to drop it and try again next year.” He hefted the bag onto one shoulder.

“You’re a senior,” Cas said. “There is no next year.” He picked up his backpack.

“Some of us aren’t as smart as you okay, asshole?” Dean took off, fuming down the hall.

Cas caught up quickly. “It’s not about being smart, it’s about doing the work. You’re on the right track, but you have to stick with it.”

Dean whipped around. “Take a hint, sweetheart. We’re done here. Services no longer fucking needed.” He took off again down the hall, without Cas on his tail. Dean rushed out to his car, threw his backpack in the backseat and slid into the comfort of the front seat. He ran his hands over the wheel and closed his eyes. Walking out was stupid, but it was done. He blew his only chance to get to know Cas without anyone looking too closely at it.

_ Knock, knock, knock. _ Dean’s eyes popped open and he startled at Cas’s face so close to his even though they were separated by a window. Dean collected himself and rolled the window down just enough to talk through it.

“What do you want?” he asked.

“Your uncle paid me for a full hour, plus the rest of the week and I want to do my job.”

Dean considered for a moment, then looked Cas in the eyes. The heavy black lines around his eyes enhanced the brilliant blue. “Then get in. You can tutor me while I drive.”

Dean leaned across to unlock the door as Cas rounded the car. He pushed his backpack down on the floorboard first then slid into the seat, slamming the door behind him.

“Where to?” Dean asked.

“I don’t know. The library.”

“Lame.” Dean looked over his shoulder to back out of his spot in the mostly-empty student parking lot.

“I’ve lived here for six weeks. I know where the library, the grocery store, and the baptist church are, so if you’re asking me to pick a location those are your only options.”

Dean didn’t say anything, but a grin spread on his face as he turned right. He was still trying to figure Cas out. He’d shown a lot of fire in their fight with Cole and company a few weeks earlier, but their interactions during tutoring sessions had been nothing short of a bore. Cas went over Dean’s assignments with him then worked on his own homework while he waited for Dean to work the problems. He checked the work and perfunctorily corrected it. Dean wanted to know how Cas’s alternate look and by-the-books demeanor fit the same person, but Cas didn’t give him anything. He couldn’t even find out the most casual information about Cas’s family.

“Where are we going?” Cas asked.

“A place I know,” Dean smiled to himself and stole a glance at Cas. “I’m probably not a serial killer.”

Cas scoffed. “I wasn’t exactly worried about that.”

“You never know. I’ve got ass-kickin’ moves.”

“So I’ve heard.”

Dean slowed and turned left into the grass alongside the empty two-lane highway. There had never been a fancy concrete driveway poured, but there was enough scattered gravel to have kept some of the grass at bay. Frequent visits took care of the rest.

Cas sat forward in his seat, the buckle straining against his shoulder. He took in the land and the trees but didn’t say anything until they’d driven far enough back to reach the place where the foundation of the house still stood. Dean followed the path around farther until they reached the weather-beaten barn that Bobby had forbidden him to enter years earlier, and parked between it and another small building.

Dean got out and knocked his knuckles on his window when Cas didn’t take the hint to get out of the car.

“Whose property is this?” Cas asked.

“Mine. Well, me and my brother Sam’s. Or it will be when I turn 21.” Dean watched Cas take it all in, eyes sweeping slowly through the area like he was cataloging as he went. He itched to know what Cas thought of the place.

“An inheritance?”

“If that’s what you call it when your dad can’t hack it anymore and runs.”

“Why didn’t you go live with your mom?”

The words froze in Dean’s mouth. He hadn’t had to say it out loud in a long time. But then again- there hadn’t been anyone new in town to even ask that question. Everyone knew what happened to Mary Winchester.

“She died,” he finally croaked out.

“I’m sorry.”

Cas actually did seem sorry as he looked around the site. Dean was used to the pitiful looks he still garnered from the older folks in town, but he wasn’t prepared for someone to actually look like they cared.

“Come on,” Dean led the way to the little house his dad had built after the fire. He held the door open for Cas and then followed him in. He didn’t bother with the lights; the afternoon sun was bright enough to fill the small living room/kitchen combo. It wasn’t much, but it was his.

Dean watched Cas circle the room slowly, examining everything just like he’d done out on the land. A microwave took up the single available countertop between the stove and fridge, and there were only two small cabinets overhead for storage. The kitchen table could seat four when it wasn’t shoved up against the wall and covered in comic books.

Dean’s stomach fluttered, nerves growing the longer Cas had nothing to say. His eyes lit on the single recliner, the tiny box T.V. stacked on top of an end table, and a bookshelf crammed full.

“Do you live here?” Cas asked.

“Some. Whenever I need a break from Bobby or he needs a break from me.” Dean grinned. “I might come live here on the weekends after I turn 18. Until school’s out at least and then Bobby’ll let me move out here permanently.”

“When do you turn 18?”

“January. You?”

“Next summer.”

Dean’s grin broadened. “Awesome.” He nodded to two doorways right next to each other. “There’re two bedrooms--one for me, one for Sam.”

“Is Sam going to come live with you after you graduate?”

“Nah. He has a good thing going with Bobby. That kid’s gonna grow up to be somebody.”

“And you’re not?”

Dean blinked. That wasn’t exactly the kind of get-to-know-you question he’d expected. “Some people are college material and some ain’t.”

“You could be,” Cas said, and Dean laughed him off.

“You say that like you’ve never seen my math grades. Come on,” he said, and led the way back out of the house, locking it up behind Cas. Dean stuffed his hands in his pockets as he led their way to the barn. The sun was just starting to go down and the wind had turned cool.

The door hung open and Dean stepped in quietly, hoping not to disturb any unexpected wildlife. He went to the middle and stared up at the hayloft that could no longer support his weight and the old stalls where they’d had horses when he was little.

“Is it safe to be in here?” Cas asked.

Dean grinned. “Sure--as long as we don’t do anything stupid.”

Cas looked around, taking his time again as if he could remember every unique detail if he just moved slowly enough.

“I’ve spent a month trying to figure out why you tried to stop that fight,” Cas said.

Dean laughed and looked down at the dusty barn floor. “I have this pesky habit of jumping in when people are getting the shit beat out of them.”

“Why? You got a concussion because of me and you don’t know me at all.”

“I would’ve stopped a fight for anyone. It was just a bonus that it happened to be you.”

Cas narrowed his eyes. “A bonus?”

“I mean, I noticed you in English class and wanted to say something, but--” Dean stammered. “I--I--”

“You noticed me,” Cas said as he came closer. He turned his intense blue eyes on Dean and Dean’s breath froze in his throat.

He forced out a response and cursed the flush of red that raced across his cheeks. “I did, yeah.”

“What does that mean?” Cas asked.

“I don’t know, man. I just noticed you. The makeup and your fucking hair and the way you dress--you’re not like anyone that lives around here. Of course I noticed you.”

Cas laughed, and Dean wanted to hear it again. He’d finally made Cas smile, and the laugh was the icing on top. He swallowed hard when Cas stood next to him in his favorite place.

“I noticed you too.”

Dean’s heart started to race. “Yeah?”

Cas looked at him again and Dean practically melted into his eyes as Cas looked him over. Dean licked his lower lip and Cas’s attention darted there.

“I don’t think I should tutor you anymore.”

“What? Why?” Dean asked.

“I’m going to say something and you might punch me in the face.”

Dean swallowed. “I swear to god I won’t punch you.”

“Okay. Go out with me sometime.”

“With you?”

“Yeah.”

Dean’s heart beat hard enough to burst. He would’ve happily died right there if not for Cas standing there waiting for an answer. Cas showed little on his face, and for a moment Dean wasn’t sure what to say. He knew what he wanted to say, but he also recognized the truth of their situation. “That won’t fly here.”

Cas wrinkled his brow. “Is that a yes or a no?”

Dean swallowed again. “That’s an ‘I don’t want to get my ass kicked from here to kingdom come’ and if I show up on a date with a dude I’ll be on Cole’s short list for ass-kicking. They were real clear at the hospital that my brain can’t take any more of that.”

Cas crossed his arms over his chest and looked around the barn again, eyes sweeping up to the rafters where sunlight showed through rotted wood. “You think that’s why they came after me?” he asked softly. “They knew somehow?

“Hey.” Dean touched Cas’s arm, and Cas turned to look at him with brilliant eyes that made him stammer for a moment. “Maybe, maybe not. But the eye makeup doesn’t help the situation.”

“I’m not going to change it,” Cas shot back with the same fire he’d had while he was on the ground spitting out blood a few weeks earlier.

Dean grinned at him. “Of course you’re not.” He was still holding Cas’s upper arm and when he realized it he dropped his hand quickly to his side. Everything in him wanted to rewind and repeat, but he looked away instead.

“So you won’t go out with me.”

Dean licked his lower lip out of that goddamn fucking habit and when Cas’s eyes dropped to his mouth Dean let out an unintentional sigh. “You gotta understand that you can’t do that here. Not in this town.”

Cas stood statue still, staring into the dull gray boards of the hayloft.

Dean shoved his hands back in his pockets and looked down. So much for that. “Want me to drive you back?”

Cas took in one last sweep of the of the barn and turned to him. His eyes seemed to glow against his tan skin, highlighted by the deep black lines Cas had drawn around them. “We don’t have to date in public,” he said.

Cas stepped closer and Dean’s heart pounded away, loud enough for anyone in the barn to hear. Dean took a deep breath as Cas took one last step to bring them toe to toe.

“If that’s something you want,” Cas said.

All Dean could see were Cas’s pink lips moving and the light stubble across Cas’s jaw. He wanted to know what it felt like. Dean nodded when his mouth wouldn’t work. His skin buzzed when Cas smiled at him.

“So what now?” Cas asked.

“I don’t know. This is… new.”

Cas reached forward and took Dean’s hand. His fingers were softer than Dean thought they’d be and when they worked their way in between his, an electric pulse seemed to jump between them. “How’s that?”

“Dude, I know how to hold hands. I’m not some virgin-”

Dean tried to stop talking when he recognized Cas’s sly grin as one he’d used himself. Cas reached up with his free hand and cupped Dean’s neck, and his eyes darted down to Dean’s moving lips one more time before he kissed him. Fire raced through Dean’s body at their first contact. He opened to Cas and made the first probing attempts to deepen the kiss. Cas dropped Dean’s hand to pull him in at the waist. Dean let out a sound when their bodies met flush, and Cas took advantage, flicking his tongue against Dean’s and then withdrawing, scraping his teeth against Dean’s lower lip. He tilted his head toward Dean’s until their foreheads bumped.

“What the fuck,” Dean said between breaths. Cas released him and stiffened up straight. Dean grabbed his wrist and held him in place. “Don’t go. Unless you don’t—uh…”

“Do you want me to go?”

“No! I just--that was-” Dean tried to take everything in at once, Cas’s arm in his hand, the way Cas squinted at him, the way his mouth seemed to hum after their contact. “I wasn’t ready for it.”

Cas laughed and the pressure that had built up in Dean’s chest released. He smiled too.

“I’ll make sure you’re ready next time,” Cas said.


	4. Jimmy

Jimmy did all the things he was supposed to. He cleaned up from the previous night, showered, shaved and dressed for the inevitable. Life support was bound to come up and he should at least look like a responsible adult if he was going to possibly decide to end his mother’s life.

_ Jimmy (9:31 a.m.) _ : headed to the hospital

_ Anna (9:34 a.m.): _ call me when you talk to the dr

The drive to the hospital went too quickly. He parked and walked in the same way he had every day like he wasn’t expecting the worst. Up the elevator and onto the fourth floor where nothing had changed. His mother still lay there, the vent in her mouth and IV in her hand, monitors for her heart showing every little blip as it worked hard to keep up with living.

He sat in the chair at the end of her bed and watched the machine breathe for her. If he erased the machine from the picture she looked more peaceful than she ever had while she let him live with her. Maybe that meant it was okay to let her go.

“Mr. Novak?”

He looked over to the doorway where one of the nurses had come in--Bobbie? Brandy? Billie?

“Yes?” It came out harsher than Jimmy meant it, but it was the first word he’d said out loud all day.

“Dr. Harding will be around later this morning and he’d like to speak to you about your mother.”

Jimmy nodded. “Thank you. I guess I should go grab some coffee now then.”

“That would probably be best,” the nurse said.

Jimmy stood, taking one more look at his mother’s tranquil body before he left in case anything might have changed.

The hospital cafeteria’s coffee was better than Jimmy expected. Some days when he visited he stopped there first and enjoyed a cup in peace before buying another and heading upstairs to do the weary work of watching over his mother. He grabbed a muffin too and pulled wrinkled bills from his wallet to pay the cashier.

“Castiel Novak. Showing your face in this town again.”

Jimmy didn’t have to look. The voice alone sent a cold tendril up his back. He grabbed his muffin and the cup of coffee instead of the change the cashier held out to him. He walked fast through the tables and chairs, out the cafeteria doors and down the hallway. 

“Novak!”

Jimmy kept walking and calculating. The coffee was hot; he’d start there. Throw that in his face, run if he had to. Jimmy stopped and turned, ready to face his past.

Cole’s beer gut and thinning hair told a sordid story of the past decade and Jimmy did his best not to smirk. “Bet you didn’t expect me to come back.”

“You always were a pussy,” Cole said. “How ya been?”

Jimmy blinked. “Busy.” He looked up and down the hall. “This isn’t really the place for this.”

“Right. Who you here for?”

Jimmy went back and forth about what might be the right answer. “My mother.”

Cole nodded his head like he was thinking. “So Castiel Novak back in town. What do you do with yourself these days? You go to law school and all that shit you always talked about?”

“I didn’t go into law. I’m a writer. And I go by Jimmy now.”

“Jimmy… okay. So,  _ Jimmy _ , I guess we can catch up at the reunion tonight.”

“I won’t be there.”

“Oh, come on. You’re here, aren’t you?” Cole laughed loudly, far too certain of himself. “I even promise not to kick your ass again.”

“As wonderful as that sounds-”

“Come on. Don’t disappoint Winchester like that. Poor guy needs to relive his glory days.”

Jimmy squinted at him, trying to analyze what Cole really meant. “We’ll see.”

“You married? Make sure to bring the wife.”

Jimmy sighed and shifted back and forth on his feet. “I’m not married.”

“You’re wearing a ring.” Cole leaned closer like he was trying to be subtle. “Did you marry a dude?” he asked in a mock whisper.

“No.” Jimmy said.

Cole waved his hands and backed off. “No offense if you did. It’s ‘okay’ now,” he said, putting ‘okay’ in air quotes.

“I think we’re done here,” Jimmy said, and walked away. Turning his back on Cole was satisfying, but he didn’t feel safe until he was alone in the elevator, his muffin partially crushed in his hand. 

The machines in his mother’s room beeped regularly, the vent pumping in and out to breathe on her behalf. She hadn’t moved. Jimmy sat in the chair at her side, set his coffee on the table, and opened the cellophane wrapper for his muffin. He mostly avoided spilling the crushed part, but still scattered crumbs all over his jeans. Jimmy cursed softly then glanced up at his mother before he brushed the crumbs off.

Cole’s words about Dean echoed in Jimmy’s head--“poor guy needs to relive his glory days”, like something had gone wrong with Dean’s life in their decade apart. Jimmy slid his laptop out of his bag and connected to the hospital wifi. He hadn’t searched for Dean Winchester in years--not since he’d seen the birth announcement for Dean’s son. That finally ended everything in Jimmy’s head. Dean had moved on so thoroughly that he had a child with someone. It was really over, and Jimmy could finally begin to step forward on his own. He tried, but Dean’s shadow seemed to follow him everywhere.

Dean was a police officer. The most recent article with his name listed a commendation for his part in the search and rescue of a missing toddler. There were more references courtesy of the small town newspaper. Dean Winchester standing with a group of 6th graders from the local school in celebration of a safety course, Dean Winchester and Lisa Braeden with their son, Ben, all dressed up for the policeman’s ball.

The gritty gray of the scanned newsprint did little to mar Dean’s features. He was as beautiful as he’d been ten years earlier, more so, even. Age had distilled him into sharp, firm lines, but his bright smile was the same. That little hint reminded Jimmy of Dean’s laugh, the way one side of his lips pulled up before the rest when he got mouthy.

Jimmy touched his screen, a small stroke down Dean’s digital cheek. It was a bad idea. Dean was happy, and Jimmy had a life back in Illinois. 

He closed the laptop when he heard footsteps, and was almost standing when Dr. Harding came in the room.

“Mr. Novak, pleased to see you again, though I wish it were under better circumstances.”

“I’m going to call Anna real quick and put her on speaker if that’s okay.”

The doctor agreed and Jimmy dialed.

Anna answered. “Is it time?”

“Dr. Harding is going to tell us what’s going on.” Jimmy nodded to the doctor, who went on to explain the medical facts of the case--the multi-organ failure, all the machines keeping her alive, the fact that her brain function was null. All the statistics and facts rolled off of Jimmy. Anna would be furiously keeping notes, her nurse’s brain questioning things that Jimmy would never have known to bring up. She asked her questions quickly and respectfully, impressing Jimmy once again with her mind.

“So it comes down to the decision to remove life support,” Dr. Harding said. “We need you to sign an agreement before we can proceed.”

“Do I have to be here when you do it?” Jimmy asked.

“Usually family stays to say their goodbyes but you don’t have to stay. We have counseling services available and your mother mentioned Pastor Alastair if you’d like to speak with-”

“No clergy,” Jimmy said.

“Jimmy,” Anna said loudly. “You should stay. I want you to stay when they do it.”

“Anna,” Jimmy’s voice took a warning edge and he closed his eyes, clenching his jaw tight to keep from saying anything else.

“Jimmy, you need the closure. Please stay. Call me again so I can be with you.”

Jimmy squeezed his eyes tight and ran a harsh hand down his face. “Okay. What do I need to sign?”

 

*****

 

“Cas, can I ask you something?”

“Of course.” Cas grabbed one of his textbooks from his bag and set it on the worn coffee table with a thud. Usually they’d be making out on the couch by that point in the “tutoring” session--at least that’s how it had gone for almost three months. Cas had been waiting for the moment Dean would try to divert them, and he was prepared this time. 

“Why did you come live with your mother if you hate her so much?”

Cas blinked. “Court order.” He pulled roughly at the zippers on his bag and pulled more books out, stacking them on the table with a thump. He chanced a glance at Dean, trying to gauge his reaction in that brief second. 

Dean’s eyes lit up. “What did you do?”

“Pissed off my dad’s fourth wife,” Cas said. “Bought myself a year here until they can both be rid of me when I graduate.”

“What are you doing after that?”

“Not sure yet. Definitely getting out of here, though.” Cas pulled the top textbook from the stack and fished for his notebook in the backpack.

“So my birthday is on Saturday,” Dean said.

Cas laughed. “Thanks for the reminder.”

“I was thinking you could come to dinner that night.”

Cas pushed up on his elbows. “At your uncle’s house?”

“Yeah. It’ll be him and Sammy and Ellen I think.”

“And me,” Cas said, unsure.

“And you.”

Cas looked Dean over. They were always so careful. They didn’t talk much in the halls at school, always left school in different vehicles, never went out in public together without Sam. 

“Have you told anyone about me?” Cas asked.

Dean grinned sheepishly and looked to the side. “I mean, they know we’re friends. You’re my math tutor.”

“Right, but have you… have you said anything about  _ us _ ?”

Dean frowned, his perfect brow creasing down between his eyes. “I told Sam,” he said softly.

“Are you going to tell Bobby? Ellen?”

Dean scrubbed at the back of his neck with one hand. “Not yet, I don’t think. I mean, it’s complicated.”

“So if I go I’m… what? Your  _ friend _ Cas? Friendly neighborhood tutor?”

“Sure.” Dean grinned again and ran his hands down Cas’s arms. “You can see my room and maybe after that we come back here for the night? I know Bobby will be fine with it as long as you can talk your mom into it.”

Cas met Dean’s eye. He was so hopeful, and he had no idea Cas was pissed. “I don’t think so.” Cas stood up and ignored Dean’s confused look. “I should probably go. We both have tests tomorrow and you need to actually study.”

“Why don’t you come over tonight then?” Dean asked. “We can study together there.”

“I need to get back. My mother noticed how late I’ve been the last couple weeks and that can’t keep happening.” Cas smoothed his shirt, buttoning near the bottom where Dean had given himself access to Cas’s skin. He rounded the couch to pack up his textbooks on the kitchen table.

“Cas, come on. What are you doing?”

“Going home.”

“No, you’re mad.” Dean popped up on his knees, arms crossed on the back of the couch. “Why the hell are you mad?”

Cas let out an exasperated huff as he slid into his winter jacket. “Really? You don’t want to tell your family about us, even though they love you and won’t fucking care if you’re queer. No--you want me to go in there and be  _ your buddy _ Cas. I don’t think so. I already have to hide enough.”

“It’s not that easy, man.” Dean jumped up as Cas slung his backpack onto one shoulder. “You gotta know that.”

“Oh, I definitely know that. I know all about how hard it is.” Cas wrenched open the door and stalked out to his car. Dean came after him, no shoes on in the snow.

“Cas, come on. Don’t go like this.”

“Like what? Mad?” Cas laughed. “You want to hide this from the world, fine. I get it in this town. But you have people that will love you regardless and you just--” He shook his head and his breath turned the cold air white. Dean wouldn’t understand. “I don’t know. I want to be more to you than this.”

“More than what?”

“Oh christ,” Cas muttered. “More than the guy you secretly make out with.”

Dean didn’t say anything, and that was answer enough. 

Cas wrenched the passenger door of the Continental open and threw his backpack in. He slammed the door before Dean came around.

“Cas, you do mean more to me.” He followed Cas around to the driver side. “You do! I-”

Cas ignored him and slammed the door when he got in, narrowly missing Dean’s fingers. He turned around slowly on the uneven ground. It was hard with frost but there hadn’t been a significant snow yet. He wound his way out, following the well-worn path and carefully making his entrance onto the highway.

Home was the last place he wanted to go, but he also wanted to keep some semblance of peace there. She commented on the late nights, snide remarks about Cas finally making friends, finally acting like a normal kid, but he kept quiet. “I’m tutoring,” was the most he’d give her, mostly because it was easier than lying, but some to protect Dean.

Cas opened the screen door and it rested against his shoulder while he unlocked the door. The screen door slapped closed after Cas stepped inside. He secured the heavy front door behind him and shrugged his backpack off on the faded brown recliner.

“Castiel.” His mother stood in the doorway to the kitchen, supporting herself with a hand grasping the door frame. “Where have you been?”

“Tutoring. I tutor every day after school. Don’t you know that by now?”

“I don’t like that mouth on you.” She took careful shuffling steps into the living room and only let go of the door frame when she was within a few steps of the couch. She grabbed the sagging back of it and looked into Cas’s face, eyes narrowing.

“Who is it you’ve been tutoring?” She phrased it like a question--like they were having a conversation, but Cas knew it was really a statement--the kind that secretly included consequences for withholding information.

“Dean Winchester for algebra.” Cas hoped the little bit of extra volunteered information would be enough, but his mother sighed heavily and shuffled along the back of the couch until she could make it around to the front to sit.

“You know how much I dislike you hanging around other boys.”

“I was assigned to him.”

“-And especially a Winchester.” His mother shook her head slightly. “A disappointing son from a filthy family. There is better company to keep.”

“It’s just tutoring.”

“I’ll ask for your reassignment.”

Cas started to argue, but someone knocked on the front door. His mother looked at him expectantly and Cas stalked to the door, breathing heavily as he tried to staunch his anger.

“Pastor Alastair,” he said.

“Good evening, Castiel.” Pastor stepped inside without waiting for invitation. Cas closed the door as Pastor went to Cas’s mother, offering his hand. “Good evening, Naomi.”

“Pastor, I’m so glad you could come. We have great need of you.”

“Castiel, please join us,” Pastor asked.

Cas obeyed, taking a seat next to his mother on the couch and glared up at the pastor.

“Your mother has shared your tragic past with me. It’s no wonder you’ve turned out the way you have- raised by a womanizer and acting as a first-hand witness to each of his failings.” Pastor paced the length of the small living room, delivering his diatribe like a well-planned sermon. “You’re scarred and broken, boy--fallen from grace. Your mother, kind soul that she is, has taken you in, but you have only proven that your wicked nature prevails.”

He stopped in front of Cas, leaned down to his eye level and clicked his tongue. “She had high hopes for you.” Pastor started to walk again, clasping his hands behind his back. “In many ways, this is your last chance for redemption before you head out into the world as a man. I promised your mother that I would do everything in my power to make sure you come to the light. Kneel.”

Cas looked at his mother. Her eyes shook with unshed tears, and uncertainty bubbled in Cas’s chest. He looked up at the Pastor, then slid off the couch and onto his knees on the dirty, aging carpet. He kept his eyes down. He could pray for them--he could pray for hours if he had to--they were just words.

“You need to beg God’s forgiveness. But before he can hear your words you must repent. Are you right handed or left?”

“Left,” Cas said. He glanced at his mother, but her eyes were on Pastor, who was pulling a thin plastic rod out of his jacket.

“Hold out your left hand.”

Cas hesitated, looking from the rod to his mother.

“Not the left,” she said. “He needs to be able to write for school.”

“Then he will be reminded of the lesson every time he picks up a pencil. Left hand,” Pastor repeated.

“No,” Cas said, and started to stand. 

Pastor Alastair was stronger than he looked. He forced Cas back to his knees and knocked him forward, a firm grip on the back of his neck. “This is only a first lesson,” he hissed. “We can skip to a later lesson if necessary.”

Cas nodded to show understanding and Pastor released him. 

“Left hand.”

Cas held out his hand, knuckles up and waited, trying to hold defiance and anger inside. He just had to make it out of the situation, and then he’d be okay.

“Palm up,” Pastor said.

Cas swallowed hard then rotated his palm. Fear coiled in his stomach, twisting and knotting into new shapes while he waited.

“We will begin with the sin of disrespect to your mother and to your creator. Confess your sins, son.”

Cas gritted his teeth together, and the first blow to his hand surprised him. The sharp sting pulsed up his arm and he sucked in air.

“Confess,” Pastor said.

“I cannot respect someone who treats me-”

The second blow cut him off and Cas cried out, cradling his hand to his body.

“Left hand.” Pastor said. “I’ll see to it you confess your sins or begin to pay your penalty here on earth.”

“Go to hell,” Cas shouted back. He kicked out with one foot, hoping to take out the pastor’s legs so he’d have a chance to run for it, but the pastor caught him by the shoulder and threw him to the floor. Cas scrambled against him only to be forced down again, this time with the pastor’s boot crushing his left elbow.

“Stop! Stop!” His mother cried, and Cas panted with relief that it might be over, that his mother would put an end to it. “Castiel, please don’t fight it!”

Several more cracks against his palm and fingers sent vivid heat down his arm, and Cas curled up on himself the moment Pastor released him, holding the injured arm in like a broken wing on a bird.

“Don’t let the wound get infected,” Pastor said. “Castiel, think about what has happened here. Confession and repentance is key to your future and I will not let you stray.”

“I’m sorry, Pastor,” his mother murmured.

“Don’t worry, Naomi. You’ve done all you can with him. Some children are unwilling to accept God’s grace.”

“Thank you, Pastor,” she said before turning disappointed eyes on Cas. “I had hoped you would at least listen. From now on you’ll come home promptly from school and go straight to your room. You will study until dinner and from dinner until bedtime. No more tutoring.”

Cas was ready to protest, that Bobby had already paid him for the week, that tutoring was a school activity- he could think of a dozen ways to protest, but none of it would get him anywhere. Not with Pastor Alastair on her side.

“To your room for the night,” Pastor said. “Let your hunger pangs and the pain of our lesson teach you through the midnight hours. We will attempt another confession soon.” 

“You heard him, Castiel. To your room.”

Cas grabbed the couch for leverage and hauled himself to his feet. He refused to look at Pastor, and his mother refused to look at him. He hoped deep down it was shame she was feeling, but he knew her too well. Cas straightened to his full height and went down the short hall to his room, closing the door quietly behind him. He could rage--he could scream and throw things and slam doors, but it wouldn’t change anything. 

He dug his phone out of his pocket with his good hand and went through his contacts to get to his father. His thumb hovered over the button that would dial, but he couldn’t seem to press it. If Cas told him what had happened, his dad would probably come get him. He could get away permanently and never have to see his mother again. But he’d have to tell Dean they were through, and even after their argument Cas didn’t want to think about that.

Cas set his phone to charge on the nightstand and changed for bed. It took forever with one hand, but his left hurt too much to use it. The skin had only broken open in two places. Welts rose all over, and his pinky finger had started to swell. Cas got into bed, holding his wounded hand against his chest. Next time he’d be ready with the best bullshit confession they’d ever heard.


	5. Dean

Dean hated lecturing teenagers, but he spent half his time doing just that. Teenagers speeding, minor shoplifting, loitering around town- he let them get away with what he could. He remembered what it was like to be 16 and feel the freedom of getting away in a car, driving fast down the little highway that snaked through their town. He ticketed them for any possibly dangerous activities, but it was calls out for shoplifting he hated most.

“Listen, just don’t do it, okay? Stop thinking no one’s gonna catch you.” The two boys hung their heads, but Dean was pretty sure they weren’t listening. “You think you’re good at covering, but you’re not that slick. Got it?”

The boys looked at each other before nodding.

Dean sighed. “If I get called out for either of you two again, you’re getting in trouble. Real trouble.  _ Police _ trouble. Now get out of here before I call your parents.” He watched the boys slink off down the sidewalk. He was pretty sure he’d get another call about them within the week.

“Nice work, Officer Winchester,” Sam walked up grinning, Mary holding his hand. 

“Hey, little monster,” Dean teased as he crouched to her level. Mary growled in response then broke into a giggle. 

“What are you doing here?”

Mary froze for a minute then looked up at her dad.

“Do you remember?” Sam prompted her. “Mommy’s…”

“Birthday!” she yelled.

“Right. We’re getting Mommy’s birthday present.” Sam said. 

Dean stood, smoothing his uniform. “Please tell me you’re shopping early. If I forgot her birthday again she’s gonna kill me.”

“It’s on Thursday. Make it good so you can make up for last year.”

“I know, I know.”

“So do you let all the hoodlums off that easy?”

“Just the ones I think are being young and stupid and won’t hurt anything.”

“When are you done today?”

“Three, but I’m going straight over to the high school to help Lisa for a couple hours. What about you?”

“Knocking around with this little girl for a while so Eileen can get some sleep.”

“Everything okay?”

“Uh, yeah.” Sam grinned. “Don’t tell her I said anything, but… looks like we’re having another kid.”

Dean clapped his brother on the shoulder and pulled him in for a tight hug. “That’s great. I’m happy for you guys,” he said when they separated.

“It’s early still, so she didn’t want to say anything yet, but she’s been so sick with this one and not really getting any sleep.” Sam grabbed Mary and swooped her up into his arms. She giggled and clung to him when he settled her against his shoulder. “Which is why we left the house for the day.”

“Well, if you run out of stuff to do you can go help Lisa and whoever else is working on the gym. Ben’s over there and he can play with Mary.”

“Maybe we will,” Sam said. “You’re going tonight, right?”

“I don’t know. Probably not. Most everyone there will be people I don’t care to see or people I already see too damn much.”

“What about Cas?”

“What about him, Sam? He took off and never looked back.”

“His life was a mess, and he was a kid then. Like you were. I’m sure he’s grown up a lot since then. You sure have. You should reconnect, even if it’s just to tie up the loose ends.”

“Loose ends,” Dean scoffed. “He tied everything up tight. There’s nothing left to tie up.”

“Your loss, then,” Sam said with a grim smile.

Dean’s radio went off and he took the call half-heartedly. Complaint from a store owner about loitering kids in the shop. The dispatcher gave him the address and Dean sighed. “I gotta run over to Charlie’s place and take care of something.”

“Alright. See ya,” Sam said and prompted Mary to wave. She did and her sweet smile lifted Dean’s spirits, at least momentarily before he got back in his vehicle. Moondoor Games was only a couple blocks away. He parked up against the sidewalk a few storefronts down from her shop and walked the rest of the way.

The two boys he’d let go earlier stood in her store window feigning interest in the display, but Dean saw one with a protective hand over the slight bulge in his pocket and the other taking stock of the place with shifty eyes.

He walked in and smiled widely at Charlie. “Good morning! How’s your day going, Charlie?”  Dean stayed in the doorway while he spoke. If they were going to try to walk out with something they were going to have to go right by him.

“Great, actually. I have these two amazing customers in here as you can tell.”

“I ran into these two earlier today.” Dean turned his smile on them. “How’s it going, boys?”

“Uh, we’re just… looking.” the taller one said, sounding like puberty had struck recently and violently.

“Well, don’t let me stop you from looking, I’m just gonna have a chat with Charlie here.”

The boys looked at each other, then went back down the first aisle and disappeared behind the endcap.

“Sorry,” he said to Charlie in a low voice. “They tried to make it out of the drug store with candy shoved in their pockets about ten minutes ago and I let them go.”

“They’re so little,” Charlie sighed. “Why are the thieves in this town getting younger and younger?”

Dean shrugged. “I don’t know, but now I have to take them home to their parents and that conversation always sucks.”

The boys reappeared, their pockets obviously lighter than before. They made a move to leave the store, but Dean stopped them with an arm across the door. Charlie moved quietly down the aisle where they boys had come from.

“Remember that little thing I said about how if I got another call about you you’d be in real trouble? Well, this is real trouble. Because Charlie here is a friend of mine, and you tried to steal from her.”

Both boys protested, one going so far as to turn his pockets literally inside out, but then Charlie stalked down the aisle toward them with a dozen foil packs in her hand.

“Pokemon cards? You’re getting into this kind of trouble over Pokemon cards? Really?”

Dean rolled his eyes over “Alright, looks like you’ve won yourselves a ride in a real life police car.”

Dean waved to Charlie through the window after he shut them in the back seat of the police cruiser then circled the car and got in. He glanced at the two of them in the rearview mirror.

“How old are you?”

“Thirteen,” the taller one said. The other scowled and ducked his head.

“I said ‘how old are you?’” Dean repeated loud and firm.

“He’s fourteen, sir,” the taller boy said.

“I made a lot of trouble around that age too,” Dean said. “I let you go the first time because I figured you deserved a chance to do the right thing. Names and addresses please.”

The short kid, Kevin Tran, was the first one to give up his address and talking to his mother went as smoothly as Dean expected. Mrs. Tran yelled at him for picking up her kid, yelled at the kid for getting caught, and calmed down enough by the end to thank Dean for bringing him home. Dean trudged back out to the car and slouched in his seat.

“You’re up next, Garth. Got an address?”

The kid crossed his arms more firmly across his chest and glared out the window.”

“To the police station then.” Dean put the car in gear and turned for the station.

“272 Oak Drive.” Garth’s voice cracked on the last word. 

They weren’t far away. Dean knew the area well and this particular neighborhood of small rectangular ranch houses had a large amount of drug activity for such a small town. Dean pulled up to the house specified by the kid in the back and let him out of the car.

Dean knocked on the front door, and when it opened Dean tensed instantly.

“Winchester!” Cole Trenton said. “I was just talking about you this morning.”

“Uh, well, that’s… great, but I’m here about Garth.”

“Fuck. What’d he do now?” Cole said, then turned on the kid. “I don’t know why I took you in. All you fucking do is stir shit up.”

“He’s okay, just tried to lift stuff from a couple stores on Main. No one’s pressing charges at this time, but he needs to stop this before it gets out of hand.”

“Get inside,” Cole snapped, and Garth ducked inside. “My sister’s kid. He’s just like her. Born to fuck up in life.”

“He can turn it around,” Dean said. “You gotta get on it quick though.”

“Yeah, look at what a little shit you were and how you turned out.”

  
Dean straightened up to his full height and put his shoulders back. He had a solid four inches on Cole as well as more muscle. “Take care of your nephew. Next time will mean a court appearance at the least.”

“Hey, you going to the reunion tonight?”

“Not sure I’ll have time,” Dean said.

“I saw Castiel Novak this morning,” Cole said with a proud smile. “Ran into him over at the hospital when I went to see my Gran. Married now, pretty sure to a dude. He got a sick look on his face when I said wife so I figure it’s a gay thing.”

“Cas is here?” Dean asked.

“I told him he should come tonight, but he said he wasn’t coming. I guess his mom is in a bad way?”

“Thanks,” Dean said and turned to leave.

“I mentioned you. Just so you know. Told him he should see you.”

Dean raised his hand in acknowledgment and kept walking. Inside the cruiser, he took off before he’d even buckled his seatbelt. He had to get away from Cole before he could think about Cas. He checked the time--another thirty minutes until the end of his shift. He called dispatch. 

“Hey, you got anything else for me?” Dean asked.

“I’m under strict orders from Jody not to give you anything else today,” Donna said. “You and I have strict orders to make it out of here on time for the reunion.”

Dean drove back to the station and ran into Jody inside.

“You’re out of here.”

“I still got twenty minutes,” Dean started to argue, but then Jody got that “don’t try to force-feed me your bullshit” look on her face and he backed off, hands raised in surrender.

“Fine. I’m going. I’ll even tell Lisa how vigilant you were.”

“Have a good time for once,” Jody said as he walked out the door. 

The Impala was parked in a line with all the other cars of people who worked at the station and their tiny city hall next door. Dean got in and sat there, keys in hand. He knew he needed to get over to the high school to help Lisa. He’d made her a promise and he’d learned several years before what it meant to break one. 

_ Dean (2:43 p.m.) _ : I’m gonna be a little late

_ Dean (2:43 p.m.) _ : I just got done at the station

_ Dean (2:44 p.m.) _ : but I want to swing by the hospital and check on cas

_ Dean (2:44 p.m.) _ : I’ll be there soon

He waited for her to answer back, but minutes ticked by with nothing so he started to drive. No use wasting time when he knew she wasn’t going to be able to change his mind.

As Dean got closer his nerves grew. After he parked his feet almost completely refused to move down the sidewalk. He nodded to someone who passed him without really seeing their face. Dean’s sole focus was on the front door of that hospital and simply making it through in spite of himself.

“Hi, Becky,” he said to the blonde behind the counter.

“What can I do for you, Officer Winchester?” Becky asked.

“I’m looking for a patient. Naomi Novak.”

Becky’s fingers flew over the keys. “She is here. I know you’re not family, so are you here on police business?”

“No, uh, I was hoping to catch her son if he’s still here. We were friends back in high school”.

“I’m sorry I can’t give you a room number with privacy laws and all that,” she grabbed a pen and scribbled something down on a business card. “But would you still say hi to Sam for me?” Becky slid the card across the counter to Dean, who palmed it and ventured a glance.  _ 316. _

“I certainly will. Thank you.” Dean said, and took off to the elevator bank.

Room 316 was at the very end of a long hallway, past two nurses stations. No one stopped him, probably due to the uniform. He brought someone in every other day at least. Dean slowed down as he got closer. This floor was quiet in comparison to the chaotic ER where Dean went most of the time when he had to be at the hospital.  _ 310, 312, 314 _ … Dean stopped short of 316. The door was cracked open, but he couldn’t bring himself to knock. He stepped close enough. If he just reached out he could gently tap. Dean stood there with his fist raised, ready to knock for a long moment before he walked away.

Cas’s mother was sick, maybe even dying. Putting himself in the middle of that situation was selfish at best. Cas deserved better than that after what he’d already been through.

“Back so soon?” Becky asked casually as Dean walked up to the reception desk.

“You got any way of getting a note to that room I don’t know about?”

“Sure,” she said. Becky found a page with the hospital logo emblazoned on the top and Dean thanked her when she passed it to him.

> _ Cas, _
> 
> _ I’m sorry about your mother. I’m not sure what’s wrong with her, but Bobby says she’s been in the hospital awhile.  _
> 
> _ I’m sorry I didn’t keep track of you. I looked after awhile, but it seemed like you got scrubbed off the face of the earth. There’s a lot I wish I did different with you, and I’m sorry for not going with you when you asked. _
> 
> _ I don’t know if you’re coming to the reunion tonight or not, but I’ll be there if you want to see me. I understand if you don’t. _
> 
> _ Dean _

 

Dean folded the page and passed it back to Becky. “Room whatever-the-hell-it-is,” he said, even though  _ 316 _ burned in his mind.

“Say hello to Sam for me,” Becky called after him.

 

******

 

He still had the note on his desk.

> _ Dean,  _
> 
> _ I’m not allowed to tutor you any more. This is Bobby’s payment for the week. Please give it back to him. I’m sorry. _
> 
> _ Cas _

Every time Dean saw it on his desk he wanted to rip it up and throw it away, but as soon as he decided to actually do it he couldn’t. 

He wasn’t mad--at least, not at Cas. No, he was mad at himself. One minute they were talking about his birthday and the next minute the conversation turned into a monster between them. The next day that goddamn envelope appeared in his locker. It was his fault Cas had been banned from seeing him--or, more likely, an easy cover to use for Cas’s real feelings.

Cas avoided him at school and kept to himself even more than usual. That was worrisome enough, but the eyeliner was gone along with his attitude. Dean’s attempt to get Cas’s attention in the only class they shared had earned Dean a stiff talking to about disrupting the entire English class.

“Happy birthday, Dean,” Ellen said as she passed his gift down the table. Sam and Bobby had already given him a couple CDs and cash to put into restoring the Impala. Dean opened Ellen’s gift with little regard for the paper. It was a book with a plain black cover and a thin elastic strap holding it closed.

“There’s something inside,” Ellen prompted, and Dean slipped the band off and lifted the cover. A few neatly folded sheets of paper were tucked inside. He opened and read the first.

> _ Dean, _
> 
> _ It has been a privilege to be part of your life. For your 18th birthday I’m giving you two opportunities that you can choose to take. The first is this empty notebook. You are a talented writer and I hope you’ll continue to write long after you finish school, even if it is just for yourself. The second is a recommendation letter for the colleges you’ll apply to. Go to college, Dean, and find the life you want to live. _
> 
> _ Love, _
> 
> _ Ellen _

 

Dean flipped to the second page and there was a letter printed on the high school letterhead. “Aww, Ellen, I can’t go to college.”

“You can and you should.”

Dean started protesting, but Ellen cut him off with a firm hand gesture. “Don’t you ever say those words about yourself again. You go to college, Dean Winchester, and make us all proud. But most of all, make yourself proud of what you can accomplish.”

Dean nodded to her and took a deep breath. She was mostly right. He wanted to go, but his test scores were low due to his abysmal math skills, and he didn’t think he’d make it based on the strength of his essays and Ellen’s letter of recommendation. He would apply for her, though.

Ellen left late, and Dean retreated to his room. The night was supposed to have gone so differently. Dean had plans for them, plans that would never transpire now. But mostly he missed Cas, and he hated himself for ever asking Cas to get anything out of his mother.

Something hit the side of the house, startling him. A branch if the wind was up, probably. Dean didn’t get up until there was another heavy thump and a loud crack when something hit the glass. Dean went to the window and saw Cas out in the snow, winding up to throw something else.

Dean pushed the window up and leaned out. “Cas, what the hell?” he hissed.

“Can I come in?” Cas said. He stamped his feet, like the cold was getting to him through his denim.

Dean didn’t know what to say. He was honestly split, half of him ready to run down there, grab Cas and kiss him, and the other half ready to push him away and demand he never come back. Finally, he said, “Meet me at the kitchen door.”

He seemed to float down the stairs. This couldn’t be happening--it was too movie-like, too strange that Cas would appear like that at midnight.

Cas reached the door just as Dean opened it for him. The cold January wind forced its way in around Cas before Dean could get the door shut. Dean flipped the light on over the stove, and then looked Cas over with pursed lips.

“What do you want?” Dean asked in a whisper. “You’re gonna have to start because I have no idea what to think. We fight and you don’t talk to me all week, then you show up now... Are you- are you done with this? With me?” The last two words came out smaller than the rest, and he hated that.

Cas looked like Dean had struck him. “I’m sorry,” Cas said. “I’m so sorry.” 

“Sorry? You--you treated me like-” Dean sputtered.

“I know,” Cas said.

Dean’s face screwed up in frustration and he shook his head. “No. You tell me. Tell me what this is. If this is over or what. You tell me now or I swear to god, Cas, I don’t know what I’ll do.” 

Cas pulled out a chair from the table and sat heavily, like his legs might give out. “I  _ am _ sorry. I meant what I wrote in the note. It wasn’t my choice. My mother doesn’t want us spending time together. If she weren’t passed out right now I wouldn’t be here.” Cas gestured with his left hand then clutched it tight to his body, pain written all over his face, even though he tried to play it off like it was nothing. There was just a little bit of bandage showing under the cuff of Cas’s coat.

“What happened?” Dean pulled another chair out so he could face Cas directly. Cas ducked his head, but Dean could see the blush spreading over his cheeks and down his neck. 

“It’s nothing. I cut my hand,” Cas said. A tear slithered down his cheek and he swiped at it angrily with his good hand. 

“Cas,” Dean said softly. He cupped Cas’s cheek and that was enough to send Cas sobbing. Dean pulled him fiercely against his chest, shaking along with Cas.

“Hey,” Dean said in his ear. “Let’s go upstairs before Bobby hears us.”

Cas nodded against him and made another pass over his eyes with the back of his good hand. 

Dean returned the chairs to their places at the table before he held his hand out to Cas. Cas took it and followed him upstairs. The contact wasn’t enough- he wanted to hold onto Cas for as long as it took to make him feel safe, as long as Cas needed him--whatever that meant. Dean closed and locked the bedroom door behind them, and when he turned back Cas was already in his space.  Cas clung to him, pulling him in tight and holding him there like he would never let go.

“Cas…” Dean whispered against his temple as he tangled his fingers in Cas’s hair. “Cas, what really happened to your hand?” 

“I cut it,” Cas lied again. “I told you that.”

Dean cupped his face with both hands and forced his face up. Cas met his eyes and struggled not to look away. “Cas, please,” Dean said. “It’s important.”

“Don’t ask anymore” Cas said, and he kissed Dean, desperate for his affection again. Dean kissed back, still holding his face tenderly. Cas put his hand on the low sway of Dean’s back and pressed their bodies closer. 

“Cas,” Dean breathed against his lips. Cas tried to capture them again, but Dean leaned back. “Listen. You’re okay. We’re okay. Relax.” Dean shuffled them over to his bed. He slid Cas out of his coat and gently pushed him to sit on the bed. 

“Can you stay for a while?” Dean asked. “How long ‘til she knows you’re gone?

“Morning? I don’t know. Between her meds and all the wine she’s out for the night.”

“Take off your boots then.” Dean crawled onto his bed from the far end and laid on his side behind Cas, while Cas took care of his boots. Cas laid back on the empty space of the bed, Dean’s arm under his neck.

“Finally got to see your room,” Cas said. “You could have just told me you collect music like I collect books.”

“But then you don’t get the full effect,” Dean said. He put his arm over Cas’s chest and Cas let out a long wavering breath.

“I’m sorry,” Cas said again.

Dean kissed Cas’s temple, and then his cheek. “Don’t be. It’s over now and you’re here. We’ll figure out how to find time together without her knowing.” He kissed Cas’s neck and Cas leaned to give him more access. “I missed you,” Dean said.

Cas rolled toward him and kissed him fully on the mouth. Dean rubbed Cas’s side as they kissed. He felt like they had to make up for the lost week.

“Hey- I brought you something.” Cas leaned off the edge of the bed to retrieve his jacket. He dug around in the pocket and pulled out a small package wrapped in newspaper.

“It’s not fancy, but I thought you might like it.” Cas handed it over and offered up a nervous smile.

“You didn’t have to get me anything,” Dean said.

“What kind of boyfriend would I be if I didn’t get you a birthday present?”

Dean warmed at the mention of _ boyfriend _ . He opened the gift carefully and sucked in a deep breath when he saw the leather band with the snap closure.

“I know it’s kind of plain and all that, but it fits in with the other ones you wear so it won’t look obvious to anyone but you and me--we’ll know it’s for us.”

“Thanks, Cas,” Dean breathed. He gave it to Cas and extended his arm. He did wear an assortment of bracelets, but this one would be the only one with significant meaning. Cas secured the band around Dean’s wrist and his fingers lingered, tracing down his arm and up to his shoulder. Cas pulled him in for a kiss, slow and sweet.

“You like it?” Cas asked.

“It’s awesome. Thanks.” Dean grinned at him and Cas broke into a smile.

“I wasn't sure you would--I mean, it’s kind of like marking you as mine even though no one but us knows what it means.”

“I  _ am _ yours, Cas.” Dean said and kissed him again.


	6. Jimmy

They left Jimmy alone with his mother while they settled paperwork and prepared for the actual event. He paced at the end of her bed for awhile, ten steps to the wall, ten steps to the door of the room. Why fate allowed him to be the one to make this decision for or against her life, he had no idea. He was the only one left, though. The only one who could legally make that decision. How ironic that it fell to him.

“I did my best to stay away from you,” he said softly. “I went away, but you still followed me everywhere.” Jimmy leaned against the end of her bed and squeezed the plastic frame so hard his knuckles went white. 

“For so long I thought father’s neglect was the worst part of my childhood. I was here for such a short time, and for the most part you left me alone. But when you brought that man to the house and allowed him to… to…” Jimmy’s voice stuck and he had to swallow hard to move past it. “You allowed him to abuse me and I will never forgive that. I’ll never know whether or not we could have made some semblance of peace later in life, but I do not regret protecting myself from you.” Jimmy looked down at his hands. The scars had faded over time, but he’d been asked about them plenty. 

“I let you take too much from me,” he said. “But I’m taking some things back. I’m letting your parents’ house go. I’m taking the Continental with me, and the family pictures and documents, but I’m pretty sure that’s it.” He paced the room again, one white wall to the other. “Honestly I’d burn the place down if I could,” he added.

Jimmy took up his seat again. The vent still hissed and the low beep of the heart monitor helped him time his breathing. 

A low rap on the door had Jimmy twisting in his seat to tell them he wasn’t ready for them, but a young brunette woman pushed the door open. “Mr. Novak?”

“Yes?”

“Cas Novak?”

Jimmy took a breath. “Yes.”

“You had a visitor earlier and he left you a note.” She handed him the folded page. “I’m sorry about your mother.”

“Thank you,” he said. She left quietly and Jimmy opened the note. His hands shook when he recognized the handwriting, and when he glanced to the bottom of the page to confirm the name his heart raced. 

> _ Cas, _
> 
> _ I’m sorry about your mother. I’m not sure what’s wrong with her, but Bobby says she’s been in the hospital awhile.  _
> 
> _ I’m sorry I didn’t keep track of you. I looked after awhile, but it seemed like you got scrubbed off the face of the earth. There’s a lot I wish I did different with you, and I’m sorry for not going with you that day. _
> 
> _ I don’t know if you’re coming to the reunion tonight or not, but I’ll be there if you want to see me. I understand if you don’t. _
> 
> _ Dean _

Dean had come to see him, written him, wanted to see him that night. 

_ Dean _ . 

Even if it was just to catch up on ten years apart he wanted to see Dean--ached for it, in fact.

He looked up at his mother. “I changed my name to get away from you. Castiel was your name for me and Cas was… was Dean’s. But if we’re done here maybe I can be Cas again.”

Jimmy took a long shuddering breath before he stood and went to let the nurse know he was ready whenever they were. He’d said all he had to say, and for once his shoulders felt lighter. 

 

*****

 

“You ready for your exam?” Cas asked. Dean leaned against the bank of lockers next to Cas’s open door.

“Hey--you’re not my tutor anymore.”

“I still care about your math grades.”

Dean sighed. “I think so? I guess I’ll find out when I get in there.”

Cas slammed his locker shut and Dean followed him down the hall. Their classes for the hour, Algebra and American Government, were in the same hallway. Now that their time together was so limited Cas felt like they were constantly stealing moments--two minutes in the hall between classes, catching each other’s eye when Cas left his lunch hour and Dean walked in for his. They lived for the midnight hours when Cas felt brave enough to walk over to Singer Salvage after his mother went to bed.

“You’ll do fine,” Cas said. “Just make sure you pay attention to the little details as you work the problems.”

“Gee, thanks.” Dean rolled his eyes as he broke off and went to his classroom.

Cas continued down the hall and took his seat. Cole slid into his seat with a thud behind Cas.

“Hey.  _ Castiel _ .” He twisted Cas’s name by stretching the vowels out of shape. “You and Winchester got to be good pals.”

“That happens when someone helps you out of a fight.” Cas kept his eyes forward on the board, even though the bell hadn’t yet run. He felt Cole lean forward and Cas tensed at the thought of contact.

“Looks like a little more than pals to me. You turn him?”

Cas whipped around in his seat and Cole sat back with a smirk on his face. “Don’t talk about Dean.”

“You make him gay for you? I hear you people do that.”

The bell rang and Cas choked back his response as the teacher called the class to order. He turned back in his seat to face the front.

“You know how we take care of things like you around here,” Cole whispered over his shoulder.

Cas started to shake, and it wouldn’t stop no matter how hard he tried to control it. Cole and his buddies had generally left him alone after the fight at the beginning of the school year. He knew they’d each had a 3-day suspension for the offense, but assumed that wouldn’t be enough to dissuade that particular group from picking at him again.

Cas tried to keep his attention on his government teacher, but he couldn’t focus with Cole at his back. Cole didn’t even have to do anything- just the fact that he was sitting there was enough to keep Cas on guard. He copied down notes mechanically and tried not to flinch every time Cole tapped his pen against the desk or kicked Cas’s chair.

After class, Cas was one of the first students out the door. He waited for Dean, who came out looking a little ill.

“Well, that sucked,” Dean muttered.

“Do you think you passed?”

“I don’t know. Passed maybe, but that ain’t good enough.”

“Sorry,” Cas said. “I should have come over to help you with your homework.”

“Hey, no,” Dean said. “I don’t want you getting in trouble on my account. You sneaking out isn’t a good option.”

“And only seeing you between classes is?” Cas asked. They’d reached his next class, but Cas didn’t want to go in. He leaned against the locker bank next to the science lab. “We have to figure something out.”

Cas wanted to reach out to Dean, lay a comforting hand on him, relax him with fingers in his hair, kiss him until he forgot about the whole thing. 

“Can you join a club or something we can use as a cover?”

“I doubt she’d say yes and she’d find out I was lying. I don’t want that.”

“Right,” Dean said softly. The bell rang and Cas waved to him before he disappeared into the science lab. 

The rest of the day moved slowly, and Cas couldn’t focus. He moved through each hour hoping to see Dean at the end of the day. A few minutes together were better than none. IM-ing just wasn’t the same as being in the same room. 

Dean appeared at Cas’s locker shortly after the last bell of the day. 

“I have church tonight with my mom,” Cas said as he shoved books into his backpack. “She usually feels so guilty for her sins that she drinks herself to sleep. I can probably come over tonight if you want.”

“Of course I want that,” Dean said with a smirk. “I always want you to come over. I just don’t want you to get in trouble.”

“She won’t notice,” Cas said. 

“Only if you’re careful.” Dean put a hand on his shoulder and Cas look down at it before he met Dean’s eyes. 

“I’ll be careful,” Cas said. “Promise.”

 

***

 

Cas feigned patience while his mother cleaned the open angry wounds on his palm. His pinky and ring fingers had swollen up so much that Cas couldn’t close his hand into a fist. There were marks across his knuckles where he’d subconsciously closed his hand or tried to move away from the coming blow. A few lash marks moved up his wrist and his mother wiped a healing cream over those as well before wrapping up the whole of the injury in clean sterile bandages.

He hated her for touching him under the guise of helping him.

That night it had taken Pastor Alastair and two of the deacons to deliver his punishment for holding out on confession. Two deacons to hold Cas in his chair, arm stretched out over the rickety table in the church’s fellowship room, and the good pastor himself to deliver the blows. He called for Cas’s confession and Cas refused him until the pastor started marking his back.

His mother wrapped Cas’s hand first, then the arm up to the shoulder. She bandaged his back next and sighed as she worked. “I’m starting to think you will never learn, Castiel.

When she finished Cas stood wordlessly and went to his room, closing and locking the door behind him. He could hear the TV come on in the living room, mere feet away from where he’d been hit the first time with that fucking plastic wand Pastor seemed to carry everywhere.

She cared so little for him that she allowed it all to happen in front of her eyes. Though, to hear her tell it she endured watching his suffering because she desperately wanted to save his soul. 

Castiel laid on his bed in the dark waiting for his mother to retire or to die from the pain in his arm--whichever came first. Finally, the TV went off and he heard her slow footsteps in the hall. Her bedroom door clicked shut and he waited another half hour before he tried to stand. The slightest movement pulled the cuts on his back, and his elbow and hand each radiated a throbbing pain. He held the arm close to his body, trying to protect it as he moved quietly to his door. He unlocked it and checked down the hall for a light underneath his mother’s door. Out in the living room, a once-full bottle of wine stood empty on the coffee table, a jam jar next to it with the remnants of her final glass starting to congeal on the bottom.

She was out for the night.

Cas went back to his dark bedroom to prepare, locking the door behind him again. He laced his boots, and grabbed his winter coat. He climbed onto his desk, dropped the coat out the window, and steadied himself against the wall while he breathed through the pain. He’d sneaked out plenty of times at his dad’s house, but it was easier then. No one noticed when he came or went; it could hardly be qualified as sneaking around. He could only imagine the consequences for this particular violation. Cas gripped the top of the window frame and went feet first out the window. 

Dead bushes crunched under his feet, and he crouched there unmoving, clutching his arm for a few minutes before the cold drove him to retrieve his coat. His injured arm brushed painfully down the sleeve and through the cuff, but Cas kept his reaction internal. No more sound than necessary.

Cas had to stretch to reach the raised window and the motion pulled every cut on his back. He shut it as quietly as he could, then shoved his hands in his pockets and started the long walk down the driveway and out to the highway.

Dean’s house was about a half-mile away, and Cas kept a steady pace down the side of the quiet highway in the cold. He needed to get to Dean. If he could just make it there everything would be better. When they were together, blocking out the world at Dean’s little house in the woods, everything worked. Other people complicated things, and his mother made everything a horror.

His hand burned as he walked. Pastor certainly knew how to make sure Cas thought about his punishment every damn second of the day. The painkillers his mother always fed him before she tried to clean the wounds didn’t seem to work anymore.

Dean’s light was still on, but every other room in the house was dark. Cas reached for his phone only to find his pocket empty. He’d either forgotten it or lost it along the way. Dean had told him to knock on the kitchen door and he’d be there. Cas stumbled to the side of the house and had to lean against it, breathing heavy as he tried to manage the pain. He could make it to the porch. He had to get to Dean.

Knocking took almost as much energy as walking, and when Dean opened the door Cas nearly collapsed against him. Dean grabbed his shoulder and Cas let out a sharp gasp.

“What the hell, Cas?”

Cas sucked in air, willing the fire in his arm to die down. “I need to sit,” he said.

“Yeah, okay.” Dean helped him to the kitchen table and pulled out a chair. Cas sank down and laid his head on the table. It was so much worse than all the other times. Pastor had persisted in his pursuit of Cas’s confession far longer than any other time. And with the help of others to hold Cas down he was able to do more damage.

“Cas!” Dean was kneeling in front of him when Cas recovered from the burst of pain. “What did she do to you?”

Cas cradled his arm close but wouldn’t let Dean see. “I’ll be okay.”

“Like hell, you will.” Dean clasped a hand around Cas’s neck. “”Please, Cas. I wanna help.”

The tender contact burst the blockade Cas had built up over the past weeks since his mother had first called on Pastor Alistair’s assistance. He started to cry, and Dean pulled Cas’s head down to rest on his shoulder.

“Hey, I’m here, okay? Don’t… Cas, come on.”

“I’m sorry,” Cas repeated into Dean’s shoulder. “I’m sorry. You can’t know. You’ll tell Bobby and he’ll tell the police and they’ll send me away from you. They’ll send me back to Illinois.”

Dean shushed him softly and held onto him, rocking them both slightly. “I won’t tell Bobby. Just… don’t do this by yourself. Tell me what happened.”

Cas tucked his face against Dean’s neck. He didn’t want to say. He didn’t want Dean to know anything about his mother. If he knew he’d want to do something, maybe  _ have _ to do something. Dean was compelled to do the right thing by most everyone, and Cas was certain that Dean would act on his behalf even if Cas begged him not to.

Cas sat up and slowly eased his wrapped arm out of his jacket. Dean’s eyes went wide at the sight of the bandages winding their way up Cas’s arm, but sounds came when Cas started to unwrap his arm. The first small gasps came at the sight of the lashes near Cas’s shoulder, then it settled into measured breathing at Cas’s swollen elbow. Dean was shaking by the time Cas started to unwrap his hand. 

“Son of a bitch,” Dean said under his breath. “Cas, we gotta--you need a hospital for this.”

“No, we can’t!”

“She should go to jail for this, Cas!” Dean hissed.

“I won’t tell anyone else what happened,” Cas started winding the bandages back in place, wincing over the most tender parts and nearly passing out. “I’ll tell them I got in a fight at school and they’ll believe that. I’ve been in enough of those this year.”

Dean clenched his jaw so tightly that a muscle near the ear jumped in place. He watched Cas finish wrapping the arm up and helped him secure the end. His fingers didn’t leave Cas though. He lingered at Cas’s shoulder, ran a finger along the hair at Cas’s neck. 

“Don’t go back there,” he said softly. “Please.”

“You know I have to. She’ll know something’s up if I don’t.” Cas said. He leaned into Dean’s touch.

“You wanna go upstairs?” Dean asked. “Lay down for awhile?”

“I don’t think I can do stairs. Maybe the couch?”

“Yeah.” Dean stood up and Cas knew he was waiting for him. He willed his body to rise, and he was able to do it with a groan. Dean stood on Cas’s good side, holding his arm out for Cas to lean on. 

They made it to the living room before a sudden dizziness hit Cas. He grabbed onto Dean, but still fell to his knees before Dean could stop him from hitting the floor.

Cas faintly heard Dean calling for Bobby. He knew he was on the floor, and he recognized Sam distantly before the paramedics took him.


	7. Dean

Dean pulled the ends of the red tie loose and yanked it from his neck. “That’s it--I’m not wearing it.”

“It’s up to you,” Lisa said as she brushed eyeshadow over her lid. “No one’s going to care if you’re wearing a tie or not.” 

“Aren’t you supposed to for these things?”

Lisa set down her brush, turning her head to check out her makeup from a few angles. “I don’t think you have to when someone is as hot as you are.”

“Lis, don’t say shit like that.”

She met his eyes in the mirror and grinned. “Wear it with the top two buttons open and your jacket. You’ll look amazing as usual.”

“ _ Stop _ .” Dean groaned. He tossed the red tie on Lisa’s bed and grabbed his suit jacket. He undid the top two buttons like she’d suggested, and took a deep breath. It worked, and he didn’t have to fidget with that goddamn tie anymore.

“I’m almost ready,” Lisa said. Dean slid into his black dress shoes and sat on the end of the bed. Lisa added earrings and held a necklace in one hand while she dropped lipstick and a compact into her small clutch with the other.

“Can you help me put this on?” Lisa handed Dean the necklace and scooped her long dark hair off her neck. He eased the chain around her neck and secured the delicate clasp in the back.

“Thanks.” She sat down next to him to put her heels on. “You excited? Nervous?”

“I doubt he’s coming.”

“If he doesn’t come then you sit with me and Benny and Andrea and we talk about the good old days and gossip about who got fat and who looks way older than 30.”

They walked out to the Impala and Dean opened the door for his ex-wife like a gentleman. They were quiet on the ride over and Dean was thankful for that small mercy. Lisa meant well, but she dealt with stress by talking through it. Dean needed quiet to keep an even keel.

He dropped Lisa at the front door and then pulled around back to where the parking spaces weren’t so tight--less of a chance that someone would scratch up his doors. He dropped his keys in his pocket and walked inside. Lisa waited, papers in her hand.

“I already grabbed your name tag and signed you in,” she said. “We can go in if you’re ready.”

Dean nodded, suddenly mute. “You, uh, didn’t look the list over or anything, did you?”

“I didn’t see him on there,” Lisa smiled kindly as she peeled Dean’s name tag from the backing. She pressed it against his chest and rubbed her fingers over the edges to make sure it would stay. 

“Here’s your program, and they’re taking pictures around the corner.”

“So we skip that how?”

Lisa gave him a look. “I know it’s cheesy, but I want a picture from this night.”

“I ain’t gonna’ stop you.” Dean crossed his arms over his chest. “Go for it.”

“Without a date? Seriously, Dean?”

“I’m not really your date.”

Lisa shook her head, her lips drawn into a tight line. “Don’t even start that with me. A couple pictures then you’re free to roam.”

Dean rolled his eyes, but he followed Lisa to the makeshift photo booth. There was a short line, so they waited. Lisa made polite small talk with the couple in front of them, and Dean used the opportunity to look around. The reunion committee had decided to recreate their prom theme Under the Sea with a more modern aesthetic, or so Lisa had said in the weeks leading up to the event. Dean couldn’t find the modernization. Between the crepe paper and plastic tablecloths it felt like he’d stepped back in time a decade, and not in a good way.

The gym was about half full with former classmates, and Dean spotted a few people he hadn’t seen since graduation. The smart ones fled for college and rarely came back. Then there were the townies like him, who couldn’t even break away from the place for a weekend.

Dean nudged Lisa. “Have you seen Benny or Andrea yet?”

“No, but they’ll be here.”

Dean shoved his hands in the pockets of the black dress pants Lisa had made him buy for Ben’s academic award banquet a few months earlier. He hated those pants and the jacket was stiff. Every other guy there was wearing a tie, and there he was with his shirt hanging open at the collar. Dean turned to Lisa with every intention of telling her how wrong she was about the tie situation, but then Cas Novak walked in and time froze.

He was wearing a dark suit, the shoulders a little too wide for his frame and the pants a little too long. He was also wearing a tie, but his was rumpled and twisted. Cas didn’t seem to care, and that familiar squint made Dean wish all over again for ten years back.

“Lis,” he said softly, then tugged gently on her elbow. Lisa turned back to him, a perturbed look on her face.

“He’s here.” Dean nodded in Cas’s direction and Lisa followed his gaze.

“Wow, he hasn’t changed much,” she said.

Dean caught every difference. His Cas wouldn’t be caught dead in a suit and tie. His Cas wouldn’t even come to one of these things at all. Then again Dean never planned to go to one of these things either, but there they both were.

Cas surveyed the room, and when he turned Dean’s direction an urgent need to hide tore at Dean’s insides. He raised one hand instead, acknowledging Cas with a small wave. Cas frowned, but waved too.

“Our turn, Dean,” Lisa said and pulled him into the booth.

“Step right in,” Donna smiled as she looked back and forth between them. “Pose however you want and I’ll snap the photo sure thing. Just try to stay in those tapes on the floor.”

Dean looked down at the fluorescent green masking tape and shuffled to stay inside the box.

“Wanna do a fake prom pose?” Lisa asked.

“Whatever you want. It’s your picture.” Dean craned his head to try to see around the photo booth’s temporary wall. Cas was still there taking in the room.

“You two always were the cutest couple,” Donna said. “Dean, look this way.”

He plastered on a smile and as soon as the flash went off he stepped out, looking for Cas. Cas was still scanning the crowd, and when his eyes landed on Dean his face lit up. Dean started toward him, but Lisa called him back.

“Dean, we have one more,” she said.

Dean could hardly peel his eyes away from Cas to acknowledge her. “Okay, sure.” He held up a hand toward Cas, then turned back to the photo booth. He had just planted himself in the green box when he saw Cas out of the corner of his eye. Cas stood there for just a moment then left out the same gym doors where he’d come in.

The camera flashed and Dean was gone in an instant with a quick apology thrown over his shoulder at Lisa. “Cas! Hey, Cas!”

Dean pushed past several people walking in, almost knocking one woman over in his haste to get out the door. He wove his way through, and finally got through the doors. Cas was almost to the end of the hall, and Dean jogged after him. The hallway Cas turned down was dark, and Dean followed after. “Cas,” he called, and Cas turned around.

“Hey--where you going?”

Cas blinked at him. “Nowhere in particular.”

With Cas standing right in front of him Dean realized he had no idea what to say. There was no way to concisely say  _ I’m sorry and wish I would have done everything differently--except not Ben--and where the hell have you been and I missed you and I screwed everything up and jesus fucking christ you look even more amazing now than you did back then. _

Dean settled on “So, hi. How’ve you been?”

“Fine,” Cas said tersely.

“I wanted to-- I mean, I…” Dean struggled to find what he wanted to say, and Cas’s intense eyes on him didn’t help. God--that hadn’t changed either.

“It was a mistake to come here,” Cas said, and panic flooded Dean. Cas couldn’t leave, not before they at least cleared some things up. He grabbed Cas by the arm as he stalked past, and Cas whirled around on him, blue eyes blazing. 

“What?” Cas snapped.

“I want to talk to you. I want to know where you’ve been and how you are and-”

“I’m sorry. I thought I could do that, but seeing you with your wife was more than I could...” Cas tried to pull away, but Dean held tighter. He wasn’t about to let Cas go again without a fight.

“I’m not married, Cas. I mean, we came together tonight, but me and Lisa split up seven years ago. We’re still friends and we have a son, but we’re not together anymore. Not for a long time.”

Cas’s shoulders dropped and the tension went out of his arms. Dean let go of him and shoved his hands in his pockets.

“I’m sorry,” Cas muttered and shook his head. “It’s been a hard day.”

“I heard about your mother. I left a note for you at the hospital.”

“I got it.” Cas looked up again and his eyes cut straight to Dean’s heart.

“Yeah?”

“I wasn’t planning to come tonight, but after I read your note I thought we should at least talk,” Cas said. “Anna said I might finally have closure on this place if I finished things out with you too.”

“Anna, huh?”

Cas didn’t say anything, just stared up at the light panels in the ceiling. Dean waited for Cas to speak even though his head was bursting with questions. He wanted to get the fuck out of there, abort the whole thing and call it a loss. He could lick his wounds for awhile and finally get Cas out of his head for good.

“You wanna go somewhere?” Dean asked. It wasn’t going to work, but there was no harm in throwing it out. No way he could make their non-existent relationship worse.

Cas looked at him, the familiar frown and squint returning. “What about Lisa?”

“I’ll give her the keys and you can drive us.”

Cas barked a rough laugh. “You let her drive Baby?”

“Not really, but-” Dean smiled. “I’d rather ride with you.”

 

*****

 

Dean tried to focus on his homework, but nothing would stick. He was so used to Cas leaning over his shoulder that he couldn’t even decide what the problem was asking him to do. He wanted Cas to be there rewarding correct problems with a kiss, calling him smart, teasing him about rushing through his work to get to better things.

He fucking missed Cas and it was his own fault Cas was gone.

Cas’s dad didn’t have rules like his mother did, and even though Cas was only in the hospital for two days Dean was allowed to go see him. 

Cas refused to speak to him. 

A loud knock rattled Dean’s door. “Dean, get your jacket,” Bobby called through the wood door. “We need to go down to the police station.”

Dean hopped out of his chair in a second and wrenched the door open. “Why?”

“We need to make a statement for Cas’s case.”

“I’m not gonna do it,” Dean said fiercely.

Bobby frowned at him. “Why the hell not?

“Cas doesn’t want me to-”

“You forget about what that fool boy said for one goddamn minute. If you followed his advice on this situation he could be dead right now.” Bobby poked a finger into his chest. “You do the right thing and tell the police what happened. Everything you saw, everything Cas told you about. He needs to be protected from that woman, and we gotta make sure that happens.”

“His dad’ll take him back to Illinois and I’ll never see him again.”

“Friends come and go, kid.”

“Bobby, he’s…” Dean sagged in defeat. He didn’t want to tell Bobby what Cas was to him—what it meant to live several hours apart. Bobby might not understand, would maybe forbid contact or kick him out and Dean couldn’t risk it.

“Maybe we can find a way for you two to visit over the summer.” Bobby clapped him on the shoulder. “If no one else is gonna do what’s best for Cas, we have to do it, even if it hurts, Dean.”

The last time Bobby had said Dean’s name that way John had died on a road in Texas and Bobby was trying to break it to him and Sam easy.

“Okay,” Dean said softly.

The whole drive into town Dean’s brain played a repeating message of “Cas doesn’t want me to tell” and Bobby didn’t say anything on the entire ride to interrupt it. By the time they reached the station Dean’s stomach was in full on riot. 

He turned to the waiting area while Bobby waited in line to talk to someone at the front desk, and there was Cas. Cas in his dark leather jacket, ripped jeans and tall laced boots, with eyeliner so thick Dean could hardly find his eyes. He’d retreated back to the Cas he’d been before the punishments began. 

He didn’t raise his eyes until Dean’s boots were nearly up against his. Their eyes met and Cas’s face went white.

“Hey, Cas,” he said.

Cas stared up at him without blinking for the longest time, until something behind Dean made him frantic.

“Come with me,” Cas hissed. “As soon as you graduate. It’s only a few months apart and then we can go to college together.”

Dean looked over his shoulder at Bobby, still waiting in line behind some guy.

“Cas, I- I got Sam.”

“Sam’ll be fine. And you’re going away to school anyway, right?” Cas slid to the edge of his seat where his knees hit Dean. “Please. Thinking about never seeing you again is killing me.”

“I don’t even know if I can get accepted anywhere, Cas. My grades are a joke.”

Cas narrowed his eyes. “You’re making excuses.”

Dean shook his head, lips working but nothing coming out.

Cas scooted back hard enough to rock the chair into the wall, crossed his arms over his chest and looked away.

“Cas,” Dean reached for him, but Cas looked back at him, anger bubbling.

“Get away from me,” Cas said. “I’m sorry I didn’t catch on to the fact that you weren’t really into this.”

“Don’t do this, Cas” Dean said, but he stepped back, allowing some space between them.

“I should have known when you didn’t want to tell anyone. I should have fucking ran the other way.”

“Cas, please,” Dean looked over his shoulder at Bobby, still waiting. “You gotta understand I have family here I gotta take care of.”

“Right,” Cas said bitterly. “Family first.” He stood and went around Dean, leaving far more space than necessary between them. He joined the man standing in front of Bobby at the counter. Bobby said hello, and Cas was polite.

They left the police station a minute later, and Cas never looked back.

“Dean?” Jody called his name. He heard her, even turned toward her, but didn’t answer.

“Are you ready for the interview?”

He nodded and followed her back, Bobby right behind him and Cas long gone.


	8. Jimmy

The process of “pulling the plug” was remarkably boring. Jimmy sat in the room with her while she barely breathed, but it didn’t take long for her body to get the hint. 4:01 pm on a sunny Saturday and she was gone.

He wasn’t prepared for the tears that leaked out of the corners of his eyes and the ache in his chest as the nurses went into action. He’d already told them that he didn’t want to stay with her after she passed.

It hurt more than he thought it would.

“I’ll be out in the hall,” Jimmy said to no one in particular. He stepped out and leaned against the wall just trying to hold himself together. When he could finally breathe again he dialed Anna and she answered on the first ring.

“Is she still…?” Anna asked.

“It happened a few minutes ago.”

“How are you?”

Tears pricked his eyes again and Jimmy swiped them away before they could hit his cheeks. “As good as I can be.”

“I’ll do my best to get out there for the funeral.”

“I’m not having a funeral. I’ll have her cremated and interred and move on.”

“Jimmy,” Anna said his name carefully. “You know she wouldn’t want that.”

“She doesn’t get a say anymore,” he shot back. A nurse looked up from her work and offered him a soft smile. Jimmy pinched the bridge of his nose, eyes closed tight.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s… you’re right. I’ll let you know.”

“Okay. Be careful, okay? Sleep, call whenever you need to.”

“I will,” Jimmy said softly. Anna always seemed to know what to say.

 

***

 

Jimmy hadn’t brought much with him in the way of formal attire. He’d gotten a suit off the rack at some men’s store on his way to his mother’s because he knew there was a strong chance he’d have to attend a funeral, and he wanted to be prepared. He dressed slowly, carefully buttoning the crisp white shirt up the middle before sliding into the jacket. The tie confounded him. Jimmy hadn’t worn one in years, and he had never really worn them often enough at any point in his life to learn to tie them well. He did his best, then went to work on his hair.

Driving to the high school brought back more than Jimmy cared to feel. If he was going to mend the regrets of his past it started with his mother, but it ended with Dean. They would catch up, Dean would introduce his wife and Jimmy could apologize for the way he’d ended things between them. Maybe then he’d be able to sleep again someday.

The small front parking lot was mostly full. Teenagers were walking out to the lit up football field and gathering in the stands like a game would start any minute, but it was the wrong season. Jimmy pulled around to the back.

The Impala was parked practically on top of the place where he and Dean had first met thanks to Cole Trenton. Jimmy parked several cars away. There was no telling how the meet-up would go, or even if Dean would want to talk. He had ridiculously let himself get excited over the idea that Dean wanted to see him without thinking about the messenger- Cole Trenton. And the note from Dean was more apology than anything. Maybe Dean felt like he was done with the past now that he’d had the opportunity to leave a note.

Jimmy forced himself to walk in. He’d try to read the situation as quickly as possible and get the hell out if it looked like Dean didn’t want him there.

“Name?” the red-head behind the table asked without looking up.

“Uh, Jimmy Novak.”

She looked up at him with a frown. “There’s no Jimmy on the list,” she said matter-of-factly. “I’m sorry--I’m just helping out. I didn’t even go to school here.”

“Sorry. Cas Novak. I don’t usually go by Cas anymore.”

“Oh,” she said softly, her eyes lighting in recognition. “You’re Cas. Cas Novak. I’m Charlie and I’m a good friend of Dean Winchester’s?” She waited for Jimmy’s reaction before she continued. “Um, you didn’t officially graduate with them so I’m not supposed to let you in, but let me get you a tag and Dean’s already here.”

Jimmy accepted the tag and stuck it to his suit jacket.

Charlie smiled broadly. “Good luck, I guess?”

Jimmy stepped to the side to allow the next person in line to get their envelope. He didn’t want to talk to anyone but Dean, and then he was getting out of there for the night. No one else needed to know he’d even been there.

The gym lights were turned low, and the centerpieces on the middle of each table gave off a warm glow. Some people were seated at tables and others stood around talking, drinks in hand. Music played too loud for normal conversation, but no one seemed to have a problem with it. They laughed and talked and Jimmy felt just as out of place then as he had ten years earlier in the same building.

A hand went up and Jimmy looked over. It was Dean, smiling just like he had been in the newspaper articles Jimmy had looked up earlier.

Jimmy waved back and took a step forward, but the beautiful woman with the dark hair next to Dean, grabbed his arm, and pulled him forward behind the black curtain.

Dean’s wife.

_Of course._

Jimmy wasn’t sure why seeing her hit him so hard. He knew Dean was married and had a son. He’d seen her in the newspaper too. But seeing her in person was different than knowing about her. Jimmy waited, frozen in place for a minute, hoping for Dean to reappear quickly. The nervous flutter in his stomach worked itself into a frenzy in the meantime. He had to leave. Nothing about this would go well.

Jimmy looked around. _It was nice seeing you, Foster High School. Hope to never do it again._ He turned to go and Dean appeared on the other side of the black curtain, a hopeful smile on his face. He took two steps towards Jimmy before turning back to the booth. Jimmy’s heart pumped fast in his chest. They were going to talk. They were going to fix the hole between them so they could finally move forward.

Dean stopped in place for a few moments, held up his hand as if to say “wait there”, then returned to the photo booth.

Jimmy ventured closer to the black curtain. It was open on both side, lights aiming at Dean and his wife. Dean flashed his brilliant white smile and his eyes crinkled in the corners. Jimmy smiled back like that look was meant for him instead of the camera. But then he realized the rest of it--the woman in Dean’s arms, the way they touched each other.

Dean had someone he loved.

Jimmy went straight out the gym doors but turned down the hall and down another. He had to find space to think, to calm himself down before he drove back to his motel room.

“Cas!” Dean’s voice had settled deeper than Jimmy remembered it. “Hey--where you going?”

“Nowhere in particular,” Jimmy said.

Dean didn’t say anything at first, just looked him over with wide eyes. “So, hi. How’ve you been?”

“Fine,” Jimmy shot back. He didn’t want to make small talk, he wanted a do-over with 20/20 hindsight.

“I wanted to-- I mean, I…” Dean stumbled through several words, and the tension thrummed to its height in Jimmy’s chest.

“It was a mistake to come here,” he said. He beelined around Dean, giving him plenty of space, but Dean grabbed his arm and Jimmy wheeled around on him.

“What?” he snapped.

“I want to talk to you,” Dean said, his grip tightening on Jimmy’s arm. “I want to know where you’ve been and how you are and-”

“I’m sorry. I thought I could do that, but seeing you with your wife was more than I could...” Jimmy’s voice died out before he could finish. He tried to pull away, but Dean held tighter.

“I’m not married, Cas. I mean, we came together tonight, but me and Lisa split up 7 years ago. We’re still friends and we have a son, but we’re not together anymore. Not for a long time.”

The tension drained from Jimmy’s shoulders and Dean released him, but he still watched him nervously, like Jimmy was going to make a run for it any second.

“I’m sorry,” Jimmy said softly and shook his head. “It’s been a hard day.”

“I heard about your mother. I left a note for you at the hospital.”

“I got it.” Jimmy met Dean’s eyes for the first time. The hazel green he remembered had refined into something a little sharper- the green brighter around the pupil and hazel flecks pushed out to the edges.

“Yeah?” Dean asked.

“I wasn’t planning to come tonight, but after I read your note I thought we should at least talk,” Jimmy said. “Anna said I might finally have closure on this place if I finished things out with you too.”

“Anna, huh?”

Jimmy didn’t know what to say. All he wanted to do was apologize and right the wrong he’d done a decade earlier. There was no easy in, though. How was he supposed to throw an ‘I’m sorry’ at 10 years of abandonment?

“You wanna go somewhere?” Dean asked.

Cas squinted at him. “What about Lisa?”

“I’ll give her the keys and you can drive us.”

Jimmy barked a rough laugh. “You let her drive Baby?”

“Not really, but-” Dean smiled. “I’d rather ride with you.”

Jimmy hadn’t driven them around much back in high school, but he knew the way back to the little house where they’d spent so much of their time together. He took his time over the gravel driveway, listening to the familiar ping of rocks against the bottom of the car.

The silhouette of the house against the dark night sky was different than Jimmy remembered, and the barn was gone.

“Had to tear it down a couple years back. It was too big a hazard for Ben--my son--when he’s out here.” Dean said after they got out of the car.

“It’s a miracle we didn’t kill ourselves out there,” Jimmy said.

“Must’ve had an angel on our shoulders or something,” Dean said. He turned back to the house and Jimmy followed.

“I thought I’d rebuild the main house someday, but I ended up adding on to this one instead.” Dean put the key in the deadbolt and turned, then another in the handle before they could get in. Dean hit a light that flickered on its way to filling up the space. The little kitchen had been expanded for more counter space and a small nook where a table and four chairs sat neatly aligned.

Dean turned back to him. “Want something to drink? I got whiskey in the cabinet and beer in the fridge.”

“I’ll take a beer,” Jimmy said. Hopefully, it would take the edge off.

The living room was mostly the same, save a crocheted blanket over the back of the couch and a few framed pictures on the table. Jimmy picked one up, examining the infant who looked so much like Dean. He traded it for another, this time a little boy around 3 or 4 with his arms flung around Dean’s neck and both of them wearing wide grins. “Is this Ben?”

Dean joined him and handed him one of the beers. “Yep. I’m not good at that kind of thing, so Lisa prints ‘em and frames ‘em and I put them out.”

“He looks like a nice kid.”

“Mostly, he is,” Dean took the picture from Jimmy, smiling fondly. “He gets himself into some scrapes like I did when I was that age, but he holds his own.”

“Maybe he’ll come to someone’s rescue one day like his father did.” That earned Jimmy a look, and he laughed. “What? You saved me that day.”

“I was just late for class. Right place, right time.” Dean sat and thumped the couch cushions next to him.

“You still have the same couch,” Jimmy noted.

“Lots of good memories on this couch.” Dean bumped his knee against Jimmy’s and took a drink, the long line of his neck a thing of beauty. “Never thought I’d see you again, much less get you back here.”

“Well, I’m back.” Jimmy swallowed. There were better words than that, but nerves outdid him. He pressed his lips together, and his heart raced when Dean’s eyes flicked down. Dean met his eyes, a deliberate gaze heavy in the moment.

“So, college?” Dean picked at the label on his bottle.

“University of Chicago,” Jimmy said. “And I came out a writer instead of heading to law school.”

“You’re kidding me.”

Jimmy shrugged. “I got lucky at school and got a couple sales quickly thinking I’d do it for some money on the side, but I just didn’t stop writing.”

“Anything I’d know?”

“Probably not. I don’t go by Cas anymore, and it’s mostly nonfiction work that most people don’t pay attention to.”

“You don’t go by Cas?” Dean set his beer down with a thunk.

Jimmy flushed. “I started going by my middle name at college and after I made a few friends it became Jimmy. I mean, James Novak on books, but everyone calls me Jimmy now.”

Dean considered, taking a long drink and swallowing. Jimmy watched the muscles work in his jaw and down his neck. A few extra years on Dean had done him good.

“Jimmy, huh?” Dean asked. “Was that your dad’s idea?”

“He thought it would be best.”

“Did it work?” Dean asked.

Jimmy frowned at him.“What?”

“The name change. Get you what you wanted?”

“It definitely changed things.”

“Yeah? Maybe that’s what I should’ve done.” Dean took a drink.

“You have things to change?” Jimmy asked.

Dean scoffed, sarcasm twisting the tone. “I, uh, didn’t do so great the last ten years in case you can’t tell.”

“You look pretty damn great to me,” Jimmy said.

Dean looked down as a quick flush developed on the back of Dean’s neck and crept into his ears. Dean never could take a compliment, but Jimmy wasn’t about to let that stop him from giving them out.

“Don’t say shit like that,” Dean said.

“So what about your decade then?” Jimmy asked.

Dean shrugged and drank half his remaining beer before trying to answer. “I barely graduated, didn’t go to college, got married too young because my girlfriend got pregnant, got divorced before I was 25.” Dean’s face went more and more passive as he recited his life like statistics, like Jimmy was witnessing the life drain out of Dean before his very eyes.

“What a used up, washed out tale, huh?” Dean asked without looking up. “I mean, I got Ben out of that mistake so it’s all good--and Lisa’s about the best ex you could ask for.” Dean started picking at the label on his beer, peeling it off in long strips. “Ya know, Sammy--Sammy did good. He did the college thing and he teaches now here at the high school. And he’s married too. He has a sweet little girl and my sister-in-law is pretty great.”

“Good for him,” Jimmy said. “What about now, though?” he asked.

“Now?” Dean asked.

“What do you do now?”

“Oh--I’m a cop, if you can believe it.” He looked at Jimmy, worry and hesitation lacing his eyes like he was waiting for some sort of reprimand.

“That’s great, Dean.”

Dean stood up. “I’m getting another. You want one?”

Jimmy shook his head and let Dean escape to the kitchen. It had grown awkward as hell between them in a hurry, and Jimmy was thankful for the reprieve. He didn’t know what he expected from their meeting--maybe something that felt a little more like a homecoming. Maybe fate allowing them another chance, but that was too much to ask.

Dean sank heavily into the couch, distance between them this time, and took a long pull from the new bottle.

“So Cas--I mean, Jimmy.”

“You can still call me Cas.” Jimmy’s heart jumped into action as he spoke, pumping twice as hard.

“Nah. If you’re Jimmy now, you’re Jimmy. I just gotta get used to it is all.”

“I’m trying to be Cas again,” Jimmy said softly and lowered his eyes.

The couch shifted. “What does that mean?” Dean asked.

“I wanted to forget this place ever existed after I left,” Jimmy said. “I told Anna about this place one time after I got back. About my mother, about you.” He breathed in deep to keep everything under control.

“What’d she say?”

“How awful it must have been.”

Dean drank deep. “So you’re here to tie this closed, huh?”

“Well, I came to take care of my mother’s estate.”

“Figured you’d take care of me on the side?” Dean forced his fingers through his hair.

“Dean--”

Dean shook his head. “Why the hell did you come to the reunion if you hate the place so much?”

“I didn’t understand what you’d done for me. I was selfish,” Jimmy said. “And that’s not an excuse-”

“What are you apologizing for?” Dean asked, shock written all over his face. “I’m the one that wouldn’t be seen with you and treated you like shit.”

“No, you... “ All this time and they had to revisit the old arguments. “You saved me, Dean. I was already messing everything up for myself before I got here and everything with my mother made it a thousand times worse. But you--you were the best thing.”

“Cas, don’t say that.” Dean caught his wrist and Jimmy took another deep breath before he looked up to face his ex-boyfriend.

“What?” Jimmy asked softly.

“I was so--”

“You weren’t ready to tell your family.”

“They know now, if that makes a difference.” Dean said softly.

“Makes a difference?”

“If it makes it better now.” Dean released Jimmy’s arm and looked down at his hands. “Some how. I don’t know.”  

“I’ve spent a lot of time wondering about you. That’s why Anna told me I should go to the reunion.” Jimmy’s throat had gone dry the second Dean touched him, and he wished Dean hadn’t pulled away.

“Me too. I mean, thinking about you.”

Jimmy met his eyes. “After everything I did?”

“I could ask you the same.” Dean looked away again, focusing down on his hands.

“Yes,” Jimmy answered. “I think about you all the time.”

Dean didn’t say anything, intently studying his dark pants, the lines over his knuckles. Jimmy looked too and caught the edge of the leather bracelet sticking out from his cuff.

“You kept it,” Jimmy said softly. He reached forward and hooked the edge with one finger.

Dean smiled. “Of course I did.” He nodded to Jimmy’s hand. “I was wondering where that ring went.”

Jimmy’s skin heated. Dean had never given him the ring. “I found it in my stuff after I got to Illinois.”

“And you wear it?” Dean asked.

“All the time.” Jimmy's stomach practically flipped. He looked up at Dean, expecting his eyes to be anywhere but on his face. But Dean looked directly into him, and Jimmy wasn’t prepared. He licked his lips and Dean’s eyes flicked down to follow the motion.

“Can I kiss you?” Dean asked.

Jimmy nodded slightly. Dean leaned in close enough that the space left between them seemed to crackle with expectation. This time, though, Dean kissed Jimmy more carefully than he ever had before.

“I’m sorry,” Jimmy murmured when Dean broke away.

“You said that already.” Dean rubbed a thumb down Jimmy’s cheekbone, the rest of his fingers dragging behind in Jimmy’s stubble.

“I don’t think I can say it enough.” Jimmy shook his head, but Dean grasped his face in both hands and waited for Jimmy to meet his eyes before he spoke.

“Me neither, you know? But you don’t gotta apologize to me ever again for that.” Dean kissed him again, firm and certain. Jimmy closed his eyes. If Dean could let it go maybe he could too, at least for the moment.

“I mean it, Cas.” Dean shook his head like he could rewind his words. “Sorry. Jimmy. I’ll get the hang of it.”

“No.” Jimmy’s voice stuck on his next words, but he had to get them out. “Call me Cas again,” he said.

Jimmy caught the rise and fall in Dean’s throat between the open collar of his white button-down as he swallowed. Then Dean nodded, determination in his eyes. “Cas.”

 _Cas_ pulled Dean to him and kissed him fiercely. Dean held him in at the waist, one firm hand pressing their bodies together. He returned everything Cas gave and smiled when Cas broke the kiss, breathing hard.

“Out of practice, Romeo?” Dean teased.

“I never thought you would....” Cas’s cheeks heated up and he looked down, to where their chests met. Dean held them together, swaying slightly.

“What do you want, Cas?”

 _Dean._ Logistics crowded Cas’s head. There were a thousand reasons why things couldn’t work between the--distance and time and the differences a decade made in people. “It sounds like a shitty chick flick, but… you.” Cas took a deep breath, steeling himself for Dean’s reaction. He met Dean’s eyes. “At least, if you’ll let me try. Give us a chance.”

Dean pulled back enough to put a few inches between them and his hands dropped to his side in fists. Cas’s heart thumped heavily in his chest as he waited for Dean’s refusal.

“I’m not the same anymore,” Dean said. “I’m not saying no, just that you don’t know me anymore.”

“I want to get to know you again, then,” Cas said. “We have a lot to talk about.”

Dean sank back down on the couch. “You’re probably not gonna like what you hear.”

“Maybe you don’t like what I have to say either.” Cas stood in front of him, trying not to look like he was begging. He wasn’t, dammit, but he wanted to. He wanted this one shot more than anything else in his life.

“We can figure it out together.” Cas sat down next to him, thighs touching, shoulders bumping.

Dean stared at some invisible spot in front of him but finally nodded. “Okay. Yeah. We can do that. Figure it out together.” He looked at Cas and smiled, one corner pulling up just like it did when he was a teenager.

 

*****

 

Cas worried his hands as he stared out the Impala window. Spring was everywhere, new grass sprouting, trees budding. It was the wrong time of year to put someone in the ground.

“You okay?” Dean asked as they turned into the cemetery.

Cas nodded, even though he knew it wasn’t true. Nothing about it was okay.

“They’re not gonna come. I’ll punch Alistair out myself if he steps foot in this place.”

“I’d like to see that,” Cas said with a smile.

“It’d be a good show.”

“There won’t be any fights,” Anna said from the backseat. “Promise.”

Naomi Novak hadn’t made any arrangements ahead of time. There was no will, no requests for a special place to be buried. Cas agreed to bury her in the cemetery of her church, so long as none of the church members came for the ceremony.

Dean parked behind the tidy line of cars already there, and Dean’s family spilled out of their cars. Bobby in a suit was a surprise, and Jody fussed with his tie. Sam shook Cas’s hand and pulled him in for a warm hug.

“Good to see you again, Cas,” he said.

“Of course. Thank you all for coming. You didn’t need to-”

“You just hold up,” Bobby said. “We’re here for you and you don’t need to say another word about it.”

A pastor Cas didn’t know was waiting at the site with the funeral director, the casket set up over the grave. He said a few words that Cas didn’t hear. He focused instead on the warmth of Dean next to him and the fact that these virtual strangers showed up for him just because Dean asked them to do it.

Dean nudged him. “You wanna say anything?”

Cas looked up to see the pastor looking at him expectantly.

“Um, sure. My mother…” What was there to say? Funeral words were supposed to remember fondly, recall the good, let go of the bad, and Cas wasn’t sure he’d done that--or if he ever would at all.

Cas glanced at his sister and she took his hand.

“My mother was a difficult person,” Cas started. “But she did bring me here, and that changed my life forever.” Cas swallowed and met Dean’s eyes.

“That’s good,” he said.

They lowered the casket to its resting place, and Cas stared numbly at the hole where it had disappeared. Dean’s warm arm went around his shoulders.

“We can stay as long as you want,” Dean said. “Family dinner can wait.”

“I think I’m good,” Cas said. For the first time in his life, he felt lighter. He had no idea what came next, but he wanted to see it.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! I really appreciate your comments.
> 
> Come visit me on tumblr and say hi: @tellthenight

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Back The Way You Came (Art)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9857867) by [shinychimera](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinychimera/pseuds/shinychimera)




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